


BT21 Attack!!

by vietbluefic



Category: BT21, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: (because in our world the BT21 characters look like living emoting plushies), (the actual SOFTEST), BT21 - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Caring Seokjin, Cute Taehyung, Drawings becoming Real, Fictional Characters in the Real World, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Grumpy Yoongi, Heartwarming, Hijinks & Shenanigans, LINE App Characters, Light Angst, Making Friends, Namjoon Is So Done, Plushies, Protective Bangtan Boys, Soft Hoseok, Surprised Bangtan Boys, Sweet Jimin, Taehyung & Jimin Are Best Friends, Yoongi is a good hyung, adorable jungkook, idolverse, jungshook, platonic ot7, the lightest of angst, trust building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 04:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vietbluefic/pseuds/vietbluefic
Summary: Something’s clearly amiss, but the Bangtan boys can’t quite figure out what. Maybe it’s how the weather’s a little off today. Maybe it’s how the covers of their brand-new BT21 merch journals have gone blank. Maybe it’s the alpaca trying to make sandwiches in their dorm kitchen. They’re just notsure.(Or;In the swirling Milky Way galaxy, our planet Earth. Bangtan wakes up one morning to a surprise! The aliens and friends whom they drew and designed themselves…have suddenly begun to come to life!! Now the characters may literally jump off the page without any warning, and only Bangtan can prevent them from escaping and shocking the human world. Seokjin — Hoseok — Jimin — Jungkook — Yoongi — Namjoon — Taehyung! Here they are, and this is howBT21 Attack!!begins.)





	1. RJ!!

**Author's Note:**

> I hate how all my story ideas hit me when I'm being overwhelmed with schoolwork and midterms. Brain, please. Stop. Please.
> 
> Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this cute little read! Thank you! <333

Seokjin is an early bird. The others prefer to sleep in until noon (not that he blames them, not at all) but there’s something about the blue of the dawn that he finds revitalizing, the cool sunrises that he can watch over a mug of coffee. Thus, he’s the first member to get up, the first to meander into the bathroom to shower, brush his teeth, and apply his morning skin routine. So usually by six-thirty to seven, he’s bright and fresh and wide awake, ready to tackle the day.

Not today, unfortunately.

Seokjin is exhausted. These last few weeks have been absolutely _hectic_ : packed with schedules upon schedules of photoshoots, interviews, music show awards, and filming for commercials. He’s not the only one it’s taken a huge toll on, either. Yoongi has all but assimilated caffeine into his bloodstream, he’s running on it so much these days. Namjoon wanders into tangents during conversations, unable to stop his overworking mind, and Jungkook’s waist is small ( _even smaller than usual_ ) when Seokjin loops his arms around him for a backhug. Hoseok sprawls out on any available surface whenever he can, Jimin gently kneads the others’ shoulders and necks in sympathy, and Taehyung — poor Taehyung — is so tired that he practically falls asleep every time he sits or lies down. Seokjin still remembers the Inkigayo Super K-pop event — how close Taehyung had been to collapsing there. At the close of their “DNA” performance, he’d staggered and held out his hands such that out of instinct, Seokjin had grabbed them, gripping tight in order to keep the wobbling boy upright. Once backstage, Taehyung shot him a grateful look, and Seokjin smiled back. He and the others made absolutely sure that Taehyung got some rest afterwards.

It’s late when he finally awakes. Later than usual, at least; the digital clock on the night table reads _9:09 AM_. Seokjin lays still for a minute, eyes closed, relishing in the feel of his sheets and comforter. The seven of them have today off, no schedules, no mandatory practice, as per their managers’ orders. Their weariness hadn’t gone unnoticed, and the managers must’ve mentioned something to the company higher-ups because Hobeom had been rather smug about it when he announced that the boys were getting a couple free days. Bangtan’s maknae line broke out in cheers at the news, Taehyung and Jungkook immediately launching into a fierce debate over which games they want to tackle. Seokjin peeps open one eye and spots, at the far side of the room, Yoongi as a bunched-up, motionless lump in his own bed. If he listens very, very closely, he thinks he can hear the younger boy’s breathing, deep and slumber-soft. A smile pulls at Seokjin’s lips, and he sits up and swings his legs over the mattress edge, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The floorboards are cold, but he fumbles for his slippers and they keep him warm as he stands and stretches, yawning hugely. Seokjin then shuffles out into the dorm, feeling fuzzy and content.

The others are still asleep, it seems. The rooms are dark and quiet. Rain patters against the windows; funny, the forecast had been for sunny weather. Ah, well. Seokjin sighs and heads into the bathroom to wash his face, thumbing through a mental list of what he thinks he’d like to do today. Maybe he’ll text his family, some friends, watch a drama? He bought a video game he’d been wanting to try out, too. Seokjin pats his aloe-scented face dry and hums in thought. But his stomach rumbles and he huffs a laugh.

_Right. Breakfast first, then._

Seokjin makes his way to the kitchen. He’s feeling too lazy to cook anything, in no way willing at the moment to trek through the rain for groceries, so they’ll probably order out later unless the younger ones are _really_ craving a home-cooked meal. For the moment, they have some leftover take-out from the last few nights. Mmm, _dak-galbi_ … He’d generously refrained from gobbling it all down, intending to save some for the kids, but if they have no plans for the delicious seasoned chicken and vegetables…

Welp. They do say the early bird gets the worm.

Seokjin enters the kitchen, notices a peanut butter-coated spoon lying on the counter and automatically tosses it into the sink. He opens the fridge and half-sings, half-mumbles under his breath while he digs through various take-out boxes in search for the dak-galbi. A light touch pokes his leg, and without looking, Seokjin shuffles aside for a fluffy white hoof to place the jar of extra-crunchy peanut butter back on the lowest shelf of the fridge door. He brightens then, finding the dak-galbi box balanced atop a styrofoam bowl of jjampong, and carefully takes it—

_Hold the phone._

Seokjin blinks.

He looks down.

And blinks.

And blinks again.

An alpaca standing on its hind legs, barely tall enough to reach his thigh, fumbles to get a plastic jar of nutella off a higher shelf and then waddles off with his prize. The dining table is piled with paper plates (kept in the bottom cabinets) and an open package of bread (whole wheat). Two slices have been taken out, one slathered with a generous helping of peanut butter. The alpaca peers over the counter and then hums in surprise. Confused, he looks around for a minute before rising onto his toes, managing to peek into the sink where he chirps in apparent dismay upon seeing the spoon there. Humming sadly, the alpaca paws at the dish rack, hugging the nutella jar against his cotton-ball chest as he tries to reach the other utensils.

There’s a bright red bandana around his neck.

Seokjin stares.

“Um.”

Seokjin’s voice sounds detached and weird to his own ears. The alpaca turns and looks up at him, blinking sparkly black eyes. A button nose dots his face, cheeks blushed pink and covered with fur that becomes fluffier around the ears and face. Seokjin chomps on his lip because this isn’t real — this _can’t_ be real — and yet the only coherent thought his whirling mind can wrap around is: _I really want to pat him on the head._

“Do you…uh…need help?”

The alpaca appears to perk up and bobs a nod. Seokjin pulls a clean spoon from the dish rack and hands it to the little animal, who _beh_ ’s in thanks and trots over to the table to hop onto the chair. Seokjin watches open-mouthed as the alpaca continues making his sandwich; the alpaca turns once, to hold out a bread slice, smiling with that cute round face. After a moment, he clucks cheerily and Seokjin realizes he’s offering him one, too.

“Er. No thank you.”

The alpaca chirps and turns, taking more bread for another sandwich.

Seokjin slowly closes the fridge, puts his dak-galbi on the counter, and then hightails the _fuck_ back to his room.

But then he stops outside the door. Turns around, and walks back, and glances around the corner.

Nope.

He’s still there.

Nope nope nope _nope_.

* * *

“Yoongi-yah, I swear! The only thing I need you to do is tell me that you see him too and then I’ll know I’m not losing my _freaking mind!_ ”

“Hyung, look.” Yoongi sighs, eyelids droopy with sleep. “It’s too early for this, all right? We’re all overworked and you probably just had a weird dream and—”

Seokjin yanks him around the corner and points. Yoongi blinks.

And blinks.

And blinks again.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin mutters. “That’s what I thought.”

The alpaca nibbles away at peanut-butter-and-nutella sandwiches, rump planted on the chair, wearing an expression of such pure bliss that Seokjin can feel himself melting around the edges. On the other hand, Yoongi stalks right up to the little fella and pushes his fingers into the soft, soft cloud of white fur. The alpaca hums but is too engrossed in the food to pay much mind. Yoongi glances over his shoulder at Seokjin. His eyes are wide and dazed.

“Holy shit,” he whispers in awe. “Hyung. It’s RJ. It’s your character from BT21.”

“I know.”

“He’s… _soft_.”

“I kn— Wait, no! That’s not the point!” Seokjin whisper-shouts back. “Yoongi, he’s not supposed to be _real_. He’s not supposed to be…” He gestures wildly. “He’s not supposed to be sitting at our table eating Hoseok’s personalized nutella!”

Yoongi strokes the alpaca’s snowy head, who clucks happily and leans into the pat. And Seokjin swears, cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-die  _swears_ , that he hears the rapper _coo_.

“Well, don’t think you’re gonna hear any complaints about that from me.”

Seokjin throws his arms into the air and tries not to scream.

* * *

Jimin is the next person to stumble out, yawning and dressed in pajama shorts and an old graphic tee. He takes one look at Yoongi, Seokjin and their guest, freezes, and after a minute that stretches into eternity, moonwalks backwards into the hall. Then not forty seconds later he dashes out again with Taehyung close on his heels.

“RJ?” gapes the younger boy, hair mussed and poking into his eyes. “RJ?! _RJ!_ ”

“ _Beh?_ ” the alpaca replies and looks at Taehyung in puzzlement. The boy immediately falls to his knees and melts into a puddle, hand clapped over his heart as Jimin squees in delight.

“He’s real! He’s _real!_ Seokjin-hyung, how is this even possible?” Jimin gasps, shock offset by the crescent-eyed grin on his face. Seokjin waves his hands helplessly and points at the little alpaca ( _who is_ still _getting pats from Yoongi, what in the actual_ world _?!_ ).

“How am I supposed to know?! I woke up and found him making food here, I can’t explain shit!”

“HYUNG, NO!” Taehyung flings himself at his hyung and smacks his hand over Seokjin’s mouth, eyes huge and horrified. “No swearing around RJ! He’s too pure and innocent to know what cussing is yet!”

Seokjin sputters. “He’s _an alpaca!_ ”

“He’s adorable,” Jimin giggles. He reaches out one hand and beams when RJ extends a little brown hoof to shake. “Hi, RJ. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“ _Beh!_ ”

Hoseok finds them like that when he awakes: Jimin and Yoongi flanking RJ’s chair, Taehyung kneeling at the tableside with a goofy grin on his face, Seokjin eating dak-galbi with his brow knitted in thought. Straightaway the dancer gasps, squeal-shrieks, “ _Ohhhhh, RJ RJRJ!_ ” and then darts forward to scoop the alpaca into his arms for a hug. But this doesn’t get him the reaction he expects. RJ, clearly overwhelmed by all the attention, shrieks in high-pitched terror and kicks him until he lets go, whereupon the alpaca drops to the floor and scurries to hide under the dining table. Taehyung smacks Hoseok’s arm and levels him with a glare.

“Hyung, look what you did! You scared him!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to…!”

Hoseok does indeed look rueful as he and the two younger boys crouch down to try and coax RJ out. Their efforts are in vain, however, as a frightened squeal emits from under the table and the three of them cringe. Guilt hangs over their faces and Seokjin huffs in frustration.

“ _Aish_ , back up, all of you!” he chides. He glances under the table, and some of his incredulous disbelief trickles away when he finds RJ peeking back anxiously. A cloud-white body trembles against his shin and sympathy sneaks across his throat. So, with a humongous sigh, Seokjin leans back in his chair and pats his knees, holding out both hands. Shiny black eyes light up at that, and the alpaca jumps into his lap with a contented sound.

“Give him some space, okay? Don’t crowd him so much,” he tells the others, ignoring how they grin and nudge one another. RJ clucks his tongue in apparent agreement and reaches for the sandwiches. Yoongi pushes them closer, and the alpaca continues eating, that cute and happy expression returning to his face once more. Jimin whispers something to Taehyung and they both giggle like kids.

“I think RJ likes you, hyung.”

“Ah, shut up, you lil’ brats.”

(It feels as if Seokjin is cradling a giant cotton ball. He resists the urge to fondle RJ’s ears himself.)

Jungkook is next. He walks in, looks at them, does a double-take and squints at RJ. Pink lips part. No sound emerges. The other members stare at him, awaiting his reaction.

As it turns out, Jungkook opts to turn right around and walk away, most likely to head back to bed.

“Yah! How can you see something this cute and then just _leave?_ ” Taehyung calls after him, shocked and not a little offended, but Jungkook ignores him. Yoongi barks out a laugh over the rim of his coffee mug. _Good call, Kook-ah,_ Seokjin thinks to himself wryly; smart kid.

Last is Namjoon, and Seokjin won’t lie — it’s rather satisfying to see the leader gape the way he had as well.

“Um,” Namjoon says, staring at the alpaca. He looks at each of their faces, one by one, searching for answers. He gets none aside from shrugs and a glowing look from Taehyung. “Is that… Is that RJ from BT21? Your character, Jin-hyung? What?  _What?_ ”

Seokjin just sighs. RJ offers Namjoon a spoonful of nutella.

This is promising to be a very, very long day.

* * *

“So,” says Namjoon, once everyone — alpaca included — is gathered around the table. Jimin had to physically drag Jungkook out of bed and so the boy sits groggily at the end of the table in boxers and a wrinkled white T-shirt. “Er…does anyone have any idea how this could’ve happened?”

“Nope.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“No clue.”

“I’m, like, sixty-percent sure Seokjin wished him into being somehow. Like in Pinocchio, you know?” Taehyung interjects. Seokjin gawks at him before scowling in offense.

“Yah! I didn’t do this! At least…I don’t think I did!”

Namjoon shakes his head and frowns at RJ, who’s dozing off in Seokjin’s lap. Looking closer, it’s noticeable that the alpaca’s bandana isn’t solid red but rather patterned with patches of wear and faded color, especially at the corners that are knotted at the side of his neck. His fluffy head rests on Seokjin’s sternum, and Jimin and Hoseok stand beside the older boy’s chair making kissy faces at the animal. Seokjin bats them away and readjusts his hold around the fuzzy creature.

“Well, _something_ must’ve happened to cause this. Fictional characters don’t just pop into reality for no reason,” Namjoon says. Taehyung perks up. “Or _any_ reason, as far as I know of.” Taehyung pouts and slumps.

“Maybe we did wish him into being, though,” Jungkook pipes up. He sits one chair away from Seokjin, eyeing the alpaca with hesitance and suspicion. “I mean, sort of? We…We did create him, and then ARMY’s been giving BT21 so much love, maybe that…brought RJ to life? That’s how it works in the movies, anyway, kinda. I dunno.”

“Eh, not like we can debunk that either way,” Hoseok says, tone colored with a hint of casual humor. “This whole situation’s as impossible as it can get, so any guesses are honestly welcome, Kook-ah.”

“Wait.”

Taehyung jumps up then, startling everyone. His eyes gleam and he looks around with growing eagerness in his face.

“Wait — wait! I just remembered something!”

He darts off and leaves the other six boys staring after him in confusion. The clock on the wall taps seconds by until at last, Taehyung bounces back into the kitchen with numerous spiral-bound journals tucked under his elbows. Seokjin blinks, wondering why those seem so familiar, but a few of the others, including Jungkook and Namjoon, jolt upright in their seats.

“Are those—?”

“Yep!” Taehyung holds up a yellow journal to show the dancing figure of his character on the cover: the polka-dotted Tata. “The BT21 notebooks the LINE store gave us! I got this really cool Ryan pen from our most recent fansign, so I took the journals to take a picture, something like ‘Ryan hanging out with BT21.’ Cute, cute. But _look!_ ”

He holds up the red journal then, and jaws drop around him.

The cover is blank.

“Right? RJ is gone! I kinda noticed when Jimin came to wake me up. I looked over when he mentioned RJ but I just thought the book was on the wrong side.”

“So are you telling us that he literally jumped off the cover?” Yoongi intones. “Wow, that’s… What the fuck even is reality anymore?”

“Hyung! Not around RJ!” Taehyung scolds. “The other ones are still here, though.” He places the other journals on the table and shuffles them around like playing cards. Save for the RJ one, each brightly-colored journal is printed with an image of the members’ respective characters. “So I guess RJ is the only one, um…‘outside’ right now? Does that mean the others might appear, too, do you think?”

The corner of Namjoon’s mouth twists. “Potentially,” he says slowly. “For sure we can’t rule that possibility out. If this happened with RJ, then it’s totally plausible that the other characters might start popping up, too.”

Brief silence descends over the room as the idea takes its sweet time to sink in. Then Hoseok visibly bites back a laugh.

“Oh my gosh, _Yoongi-hyung_.” His eyes crinkle with his heart-shaped grin and he claps a hand over his mouth, smothering an amused snort. “You and _Shooky_.”

Yoongi throws his head back and half-groans, half-guffaws in exasperation. “Oh, _fuck me_. I made a hyperactive cookie that never stays still. Fantastic. Just _great_ ,” he says, then runs both hands down his face (and ignores Taehyung’s whine of _Hyung, I said not around RJ…!_ ).“I’m literally going to have an aneurysm.”

“What about me?!” Jungkook cries, hands flying up to clutch his hair in frustration. “Cooky is a bunny that grows muscle, hyung! He  _grows muscle!_ He’ll beat me up and then throw me out the window before I can get within ten feet of him!”

Hoseok kneads his shoulders. “Work hard, Jungkookie,” he says, sympathetic even as he teases their maknae. Jungkook groans and knocks his forehead against the table. Namjoon, despite looking worried and preoccupied with his own thoughts, nonetheless reaches over to pat the boy’s head.

“Koya’s meant to be a pretty smart koala. I think he could be one of the easier ones to win over, if he understands that we mean no harm, we just want to help him and his friends. But we do have to be careful since Koya can be really sensitive to his surroundings… Don’t want to make him start panicking.”

Jimin hums and nods. “It should be fairly easy to gain Chimmy’s trust, too. I designed him with a friendly and adorable kind of personality in mind, so it should be okay,” he muses aloud. He casts Taehyung a glance whereupon his brow furrows. “To be honest, it’s Tata I’m worried about.”

“A strange-minded alien — a ‘universtar’ in the making…!” Taehyung announces, stretching out the words in an exaggeratedly dramatic tone. Then he blows out his lips and continues in a normal voice, “Yeah… Tata might end up being a little difficult. He can transform into lots of different shapes, too, so we’ll probably have a hard time catching him. Tata’s super unpredictable, but maybe we can attract him with weird food, like curly potatoes or natto.”

“Taehyung-ah, we don’t have any curly potatoes. Or natto.”

“I know that! Those were just examples.”

“Mang is…” Hoseok hesitates, lapses into quiet for a moment, then starts again. “Mang’ll be scared, if I’m assuming right. He gets stressed easily, so he could wind up getting really upset and hiding somewhere, or running away. If he appears, we might need one of the other characters to help coax him to trust us.”

“Assuming they actually know each other after they come to life,” Jungkook adds. “This could be the first time they ever meet at all.”

“Oh sh— _crap_. Jungkook’s right!” Namjoon smacks a palm to his forehead. “Does the BT21 canon already exist for them, that they came together to become friends and idols? Or will the concept story be played out after they all come alive? Oh, hell — in that case, what about Van, Tata’s _giant AI robot?_ If that pops up right smack in the middle of the city, forget everything else, we’re going to have a national panic on our hands!”

“Hyung, calm down!” Taehyung waves a dismissive hand and indicates the Tata journal. “I think we’ll be fine. Van isn’t on the cover with Tata.”

“But still! Will the concepts behind BT21 even exist? How does our existence as their artists and creators play into that since we’re real and they will be, too? You guys, we _made_ them. They exist because of _us_. RJ exists because of  _Jin-hyung_.” Namjoon flaps a frantic hand towards Seokjin and the bipedal alpaca in his lap, and cries, “The universe as we know it is literally turning itself inside-out and no one else besides me is _freaking out over this?!_ ”

Yoongi places his hands on Namjoon’s shoulders and immediately, the younger boy snaps his mouth shut. He shoots Yoongi a helpless, desperate look which the other reciprocates with a scowly but steady expression. Pale thumbs rub small circles into the sides of Namjoon’s neck.

“Namjoon-ah,” he says. “Breathe. It’s gonna be fine. We’ll figure this out one way or another. Okay? Breathe.”

Namjoon opens his mouth, closes it again, and inhales. “Okay,” he whispers. Dark eyes flicker around at the others, then glance down in shame and embarrassment. “S…Sorry about that.”

“It’s cool, Joon-ah!” Hoseok chirps, placing a supportive hand on his back that’s joined by a sadly-smiling Jimin. “But, uh, I think you accidentally woke up RJ.”

Seven pairs of eyes flick to the mascot, who is stirring awake against Seokjin’s chest. Button-shaped eyes blink open and RJ yawns big enough to expose a small pink tongue (Jimin grabs his chest and beams from ear-to-ear). Then he appears to notice the journals on the table and straightaway sits upright, humming in surprised intrigue. RJ makes a sound like a mix between a chirp and a hiccup, and extends a hoof for the nearest one. Jungkook, his sleep-puffy face both curious and bemused, slides the notebook into his reach and RJ pulls it closer. Everyone stares as he studies the cover’s picture of a flexing Cooky with great intensity.

“So, ah,” Yoongi begins at length, sounding gruff and looking decidedly awkward at making conversation with a fictional alpaca. “That guy look familiar to you?”

RJ clucks and nods, puffs of fur bouncing in eagerness. He keeps poking the picture of Cooky. Namjoon harrumphs at that, rests his chin on his hands. Though clearly still shaken, he looks a bit calmer now, and when he speaks, his “leader tone” slides effortlessly into place.

“All right. So, at least RJ recognizes the other ones. Since there’s no way to tell when the rest might appear, I say we each take a journal — preferably the ones with our respective character — and carry that everywhere we go as a precaution. That way, at least one of us will be close by if another BT21 character comes to life, and we can call each other if we need help. Sound good?”

“Can we put the journals in backpacks, though?” Jungkook asks, eyes wide. “What if I have the notebook in a bag, and Cooky comes to life and gets trapped inside?”

“I don’t think it’ll be an issue,” Taehyung jumps in. “I put the journals in a plastic bag. The RJ one was at the top so I could see it, but otherwise it was pretty wrapped up. But RJ got out anyway, so backpacks and stuff should be fine to use, too.”

“Hmm, okay,” says Namjoon. “So, if everyone is down to do this, say aye.”

“Aye.”

“Aye!”

“Mm, yeah, aye.”

“Ayyyyyyyye!”

“It’s an aye from me.”

“Same here!”

“Great. So it’s settled then.” Namjoon nods and looks at each person with a serious face. “Everyone grab a journal, remember to charge your phones, and always be on the lookout for weird things happening, since we’re not sure when and why the characters will appear. I’ll call Sejin-hyung and explain the situation to him. Or, well…I’ll try to, at least.”

“I’ll help,” say Yoongi and Jimin at the same time, causing Hoseok to laugh fondly. Namjoon sends them a grateful look but then all their attention is snatched back when RJ speaks.

“ _Cooky_ ,” he says — albeit at an odd, squeaky pitch, but understandable nevertheless. RJ flips open the Cooky journal ( _how he’s able to do such things with hooves, Seokjin may never understand_ ) but then deflates upon the sight of nothing but blank pages behind the image of his friend. That elicits joint _aww_ ’s from Taehyung and Jimin, who look as though they feel sorry for the creature, and even Namjoon can’t help the sad smile that flickers across his face. Seokjin gazes at the back of RJ’s head and, after a hesitant moment, runs crooked fingers through the fuzzy white fur there.

“Yah,” he says, gentle. “Don’t be sad. We’ll take care of you, ‘kay?”

RJ tips his head up to look at him. Tiny round eyes shine bright black; Seokjin smiles and knows then that RJ has decided to trust the seven of them. “ _Beh_ ,” the alpaca replies, softly, and Yoongi narrows his eyes.

“Right, that’s it. RJ’s sleeping with me tonight.”

“What?!”

“No fair, hyung, you can’t call dibs!” Jimin cries.

“For that warm pillow of fluff and fur and joy? Oh, yes, I fucking can, and if you guys have a problem with that, you can all _fight me_.”

 

 

 

(Nobody fights him.)


	2. Tata!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said that Shooky would be next...but then I realized that it'd make great plot for later. Heheheh.
> 
> In the meantime, our beloved alien Tata is here at last!! Also, all pronouns for the BT21 characters have now been changed to male _he/him_ 's rather than simple _it_ 's, as per some critique that those were kind of hard to follow along. As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! <333

As it turns out, however, neither Namjoon, Jimin, nor Yoongi are the ones to break the news to Sejin. Instead, the moment the manager rushes in through the front door, Taehyung pops in front of him, lifts a confused RJ, and deadpans for the older man to, “ _Feel._ ”

Sejin stares.

“Yeah, yeah, we know he’s soft, Taehyung-ah, cut that out.” An exasperated Yoongi pulls him back from the doorway and nods at Sejin. A rumpled pink hoodie drapes his torso, clashing with his unchanged Adidas sweats. Slippers shod his feet and he clutches a full mug of black coffee in one hand. “Morning, Manager Sejin. Sorry about the last-minute notice, thanks so much for responding even this early in the day. We know you’re super busy.”

“It’s my job, Yoongi-yah.” But Sejin is still staring. “So,” he continues after a beat, slowly, “about this emergency you guys called me over for…?”

“Right, yeah.” Yoongi coughs into his fist and glances aside. “Well. How about you come on in first? Then we’ll give you all the details. And Taehyung, put him down, he doesn’t like being held that way.”

“But hyung, he’s so _light_ ,” Taehyung protests even as RJ wriggles around agitatedly in his hold. But the look of disapproval he then receives convinces him to put down the alpaca, who trots back into the kitchen straightaway, hooves tapping _pata-pata-pata_ over the tile floor. Sejin stares after him a moment longer before glancing back towards Yoongi. The younger boy shrugs and gestures towards his mug.

“Y’want some, Manager-hyung?  This is gonna take a while.”

Sejin closes his eyes, removes his glasses, and ever-so-gently pinches the bridge of his nose. He releases a long and heavy sigh.

“Yeah. I think coffee would be great.”

* * *

“So, what you’re telling me,” says Sejin after two nursed cups of espresso, “is that the BT21 characters are coming alive, and you think these prototype journals from the LINE store have something to do with it?”

“That’s…basically the deal, yeah,” Namjoon murmurs, eyes darting from Sejin to Yoongi and Jimin and back. Each of them sip at their own coffee, mugs colored varying shades of dark brown; clearly, it’s turned out to be the sort of day that requires copious amounts of caffeine to function. “Look, Sejin-hyung, I know it sounds crazy…”

“Oh, you don’t have to convince _me_.” A ghost of a half-smile crosses Sejin’s face and the older man gestures towards the kitchen. “If I weren’t seeing it with my own two eyes, I really would have thought you’d all gone insane.”

The four of them glance over to where the faucet is running. Seokjin stands at the sink washing the dishes from their breakfast of take-out — and right next to him is RJ, standing atop a plastic yellow stool to help the eldest Bangtan member rinse them off. Taehyung sits on the counter, where RJ passes him drippy bowls and plates to dry. All those seated at the dining table can agree that the expression Taehyung fixes on the alpaca each time can be described as nothing less than _heart eyes._

“Taehyung’s not going to let RJ go anywhere,” Jimin says with a note of humor. “He’s pretty much fallen in love already. You should’ve seen how he was ready to fist-fight Yoongi-hyung for the rights to cuddle RJ, it was honestly hilarious.”

Sejin’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Did he really? Fist-fight him, I mean.”

“Pfft, of course not. It’s Yoongi-hyung we’re talking about here.”

“Mmm. Of course.” Sejin takes a long, long sip from his mug and then sets it down with a _clack_. (Yoongi narrows his eyes at Jimin and pinches the younger boy’s cheek with a sharp, “ _Yah_ , what’s that supposed to mean?” to which Jimin just grins lopsidedly.) “Well…I’m sorry that I can’t say I know what to tell you to do. I’m confident this has pretty much never happened before, not to mention there’s no way to predict what might happen if this does get out. Best case scenario, ARMY will go crazy in a good way over this. Worst case…”

Sejin frowns at the BT21 journals still piled atop the dining table, then at RJ who’s rinsing off the last plate under both Seokjin and Taehyung’s heart-eyed watch.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if certain kinds of people start knocking on your door asking to research your new friend should word get out, to be honest.”

“Research?” Hoseok’s voice draws their eyes over to the hallway entrance, where their lead dancer stands shifting his weight between his feet with a nervous expression. He’s changed out of his pajamas into fresh clothes: basketball shorts and a clean tank top. An elastic headband pushes his bangs out of his face. “Like…scientists and shit?”

“Language!” yells Taehyung from the kitchen while Sejin sighs.

“More or less,” the manager says. “From what I’m seeing, it _is_ a walking, talking, human-intelligence-level alpaca you have hanging around here. That’s…bound to make people curious, to say the least.”

“I guess,” Namjoon sighs as Hoseok bites his lip almost hard enough to draw blood. “But still, I don’t really want publicity over this, Manager-hyung. We don’t. It’s not as if RJ has done anything to hurt us, or bother us, it’s just…” He sucks his lower lip for a moment, thoughtful and hesitant. “Just… The whole thing is weird and…none of us are entirely sure where to go from here, I guess. I don’t know.”

Yoongi places a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder, his grip firm and reassuring. Namjoon shoots him a startled, then grateful look and Yoongi lets the corners of his mouth tick upwards.

“But we’ll figure it out.” He glances up to lock gazes with all of them, one by one. “We always do.”

A fond smile flickers over Sejin’s face, brief, before he clears his throat and resumes his all-business attitude. He says, “In that case, if you don’t want to risk someone trying to donate them to science, then I think it’d be best to keep them a secret for now. I’ll tell the other managers, keep everyone else on a need-to-know basis, otherwise I’m going to have to trust that the seven of you be solely responsible for anything that goes from here. Not to mention, you guys do have just a few days before your schedules start up again. Whatever you come up with, remember to keep something long-term in mind, that’s all.”

Serious nods go around, expressions ranging from tentative ( _Hoseok_ ) to firm ( _Jimin_ ). “We will, hyung,” Namjoon says, slow but steady, hands clasped together on the table. “Whatever we can. We’ll do our best.”

“Do your best!” Taehyung pipes up as he pops out of the kitchen, a glass of orange juice in hand. “Jimin-ah, do you want some? We’re almost out of cranberry.”

“Oooh, yeah, I’ll have some,” Jimin perks up at once. Rather than getting up to get his own orange juice, though, he just grabs Taehyung’s glass and gulps down a huge mouthful, ignoring his best friend’s screech of protest. Seokjin rolls his eyes as he saunters out with a cup of tea; RJ follows close on his heels, clutching a glass of juice against a cotton chest. Sejin squints at the alpaca as he approaches.

“RJ?” says the manager, and RJ pauses to peer up at the stranger timidly. “Huh. So. I’ve heard quite a lot about you, little guy. Seems that everyone really likes you already.” Yoongi swears that he sees the alpaca’s face flush, puffy white fur tinted rosy pink. RJ mumbles something bashful and clutches his orange juice tight to bow a full ninety degrees, which causes Sejin to laugh out loud. “ _Aish_ , okay, he’s cute,” he mutters aloud, and Taehyung and Jimin snicker between themselves. “I suppose I’ll be depending on you to take care of my boys then. Let’s work hard together, RJ. They’re a real rowdy bunch.”

“ _Beh!_ ” is the instant agreement. Taehyung gapes and slaps an offended hand over his chest.

“What?! He’s on Sejin-hyung’s side already?! RJ was just a manager in disguise this whole time!”

Hoseok raises his eyebrows. “Somehow I can believe that.”

Jimin laughs aloud and even Yoongi has to smother a grin. Sejin chuckles as he reaches out to shake RJ’s hoof and then gently, when nobody is looking, winks at the alpaca. RJ peeks up at him, hums, and winks right back.

Yeah, they’ll be just fine.

* * *

 

(About four hours later, Sejin gets another call.)

 

(They are not fine.)

 

* * *

“RJ,” Taehyung announces three hours later, with an exceedingly grave air, “I freaking love you.”

RJ hums and pets his hair in a fond manner. He sits on the sofa from where Seokjin had walked into the living room twenty minutes earlier, plopped the indignantly-squealing alpaca onto a startled Jimin, and then told the maknaes to “Watch him please!” with no little exasperation, however amused as well. RJ had, evidently, gotten very attached to Seokjin since that morning. Maybe a little _too_ attached, even. While Taehyung personally thinks the sight of RJ toddling everywhere after Seokjin is just heart-wrenchingly adorable, apparently RJ’s attempt to follow Seokjin into the bathroom and, even worse, straight out the door to the grocery store had crossed a line ( _“Yah, he ate that whole loaf of bread! The entire thing! We need more than just package ramyeon for dinner tonight if that’s how big his appetite can be!”_ ). And so the eldest assigned the three youngest to be alpaca-sitters until future notice.

RJ had fumed and nothing the ‘95-liners tried — offering him hugs, video games, an acrylic Seokjin stand — seemed to work. Not until Jungkook who’d been surreptitiously eyeing them all from the side crept over and cautiously held out a box of Pepero did the alpaca perk up. Jimin cooed at how eagerly RJ chewed on the chocolate biscuit sticks, while Taehyung sidled right up to Jungkook and grinned at the boy’s flushed face.

“Cute, right?” said Taehyung with a smug note.

“Shut up, hyung,” Jungkook muttered. But he glanced at RJ again, this time with far less distrust and suspicion than before, and Taehyung laughed.

Now RJ munches contentedly on diced melon (courtesy of a clearly guilt-ridden Seokjin, who came back with snacks for them all before he headed out to do some emergency shopping), one hoof fiddling with a Wii remote. Taehyung furrows his brow. He reaches out to stroke back RJ’s fluffy ears and levels the alpaca with a most serious, somber expression.

“I’m not kidding, RJ. I’m under your spell. Under your skin, like in ‘Mirotic.’ I would literally do anything and everything for you.”

“ _Beh?_ ”

“Seriously. You can ask me for clothes and I’d buy you designer. You can ask me for an entire restaurant of food and I’d dish out the cash. You can ask me for the whole entire world and I’d hatch a plan for total domination in minutes.”

“ _B-Beh…?!_ ”

“RJ, I’d catch a grenade for you. Jump in front of a train for you. Throw my hand on a blade for you.” Taehyung is tearing up as he clenches his fist and chokes out, “You know _I’d_ _do anyth—_ ”

“Taehyung, it’s not working!” On his other side, Jimin smashes the buttons on his Wii remote and curses as his Yoshi crashes into a deccelerating Bowser Jr. “Distract him better, will you?!”

“I’m _trying!_ ”

Taehyung straightens up to elbow Jimin in the ribs, who shoves right back at him and then veers a sharp left around the next curve. Having coaxed their new friend into a casual game of Mario Kart, the two boys sincerely regret their decision because RJ, as it turns out, is an _absolute freaking monster_. Oblivious to their indignant screams, RJ sucks on a slice of melon and expertly rams Jimin off the rainbow road with a turtle shell. Taehyung shouts aloud when Jimin’s character rights itself — only for its vision to get blasted with squid-ink by a different player and RJ has the nerve to _chortle_ at them. Even Jungkook cracks a lopsided grin behind his hand, amused by his hyungs’ plight.

“ _Aaaagh_ , why is he so _good?!_ ” Jimin yells, slapping Taehyung’s arm angrily in lieu of the alpaca. “This doesn’t make any sense, he doesn’t even have opposable thumbs!”

“Jimin Jimin Jiminie he’s gaining on you, quick, _quick, ACTIVATE BULLET BILL!_ ” is Taehyung’s frantic response. But then the living room goes wild when once again RJ skids across the finish line in first place, leaving Jimin not even in second or third but sad, sad fourth. Taehyung knocks his head back against the sofa while Jimin flings his controller down and his arms up.

“I give up! This guy is freaking god-tier!”

“And he’s worse than Jungkookie because we can’t even _hit_ him in revenge,” Taehyung groans forlornly. Jungkook laughs aloud at that, then lifts his hand after another tentative second. But the grin that appears when RJ slaps him a high-five is brilliant, such that Taehyung has to bite back a smile of his own. Jimin fumes and reaches across his best friend’s lap to pull RJ in for a sore loser’s cuddle.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You are _so_ lucky that you’re cuter than him,” he tells the alpaca, indicating their maknae. RJ hums and settles his little hind legs across Jimin’s thighs, meanwhile Jungkook lets out a dramatic gasp.

“Hyung! I can’t believe you would say that!”

“He’s got a teddy-bear face, Kook-ah, how am I supposed to help it?!”

“Wow, seriously… You’ve got them fighting over you,” Taehyung leans over to whisper to RJ, who peers up at him with curious intrigue. “They never fight over _me_. It almost makes me jealous, except not really, because you’re awesome, RJ.”

RJ blushes.

“I mean it,” Taehyung says, an abrupt seriousness deepening the timbre of his voice. “I really hope you get to stay. That’s the one really big bad thing of not knowing how this happened, I guess… It means we don’t know what might make you disappear, too.”

RJ’s eyebrows are more black dots than anything, yet still they draw together so that he considers Taehyung with a rather sad, if understanding smile. He reaches out his hooves to rest them atop Taehyung’s folded hands, then leans in, and Taehyung can’t help beaming when RJ smushes a kiss against his nose.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, then brightens. “Yeah. You’re right! I shouldn’t be worrying about stuff like that.”

“ _Beh_.”

“We’re all together now, so that’s what we should focus on.”

“ _Beh!_ ”

“If you’re both done being grossly cute,” says Jimin, bemused, “Taehyung-ah, can you go grab me some water? I’d do it myself, but…” He flutters his eyelashes, gestures down at the alpaca nestled in his lap. Taehyung rolls his eyes and sticks out his tongue.

“What about Jungkook-ah?”

“Nope,” pipes up the maknae. “M’too busy.” Indeed, he’s picked up Jimin’s fallen controller and is scrolling through character select, eyeing RJ who hums back at him, a challenging smile on his teddy-bear face. Taehyung snorts and gives Jimin’s shoulder a light punch.

“Fine. Only because I’m the best best friend ever,” he says and slides off the couch. Jimin shoots him a finger heart that he returns as he heads into the kitchen. Taehyung takes no more than a minute. He grabs a glass, chucks in a couple ice cubes, and then douses them with filtered water from the refrigerator. Then he pauses by the pantry to grab some snacks: chips and dried cranberries. No more than a minute.

But when he re-enters the living room, Taehyung freezes as the bells in his head go  _off_.

Everything seems fine. Jungkook and Jimin are shouting exuberantly, RJ tucked against Jimin’s chest mashing the Wii remote. None of them are paying attention to where Taehyung stands stock-still behind the couch. But something’s not right. Clutching the water glass and snacks, Taehyung darts his narrowed eyes around the room, mind working a million miles an hour. Then a realization hits, and he snaps his head around, gaze boring holes into the journals on the coffee table.

They’d put down the journals there to turn on the TV system. _Chimmy, Cooky, and Tata._ It’d be fine, said Jimin, since the table’s right there. Perfectly visible, if a little off to the side.

Except Jimin and Jungkook aren’t looking.

Except _Tata is gone._

Taehyung stares at the journal wide-eyed and then says, “Um. Nobody freak out, but Tata’s not there anymore.”

“What?!”

Jimin whips around to gape at Taehyung, then turns and sucks in a sharp breath at the sight of the maknae line’s journals. His and Jungkook’s, still emblazoned with their respective BT21 characters. Taehyung’s — completely blank. Jungkook fumbles to hit _Pause_  on their game and glances between his hyungs, face pale. RJ, sensing the abrupt tension, makes a quiet noise of distress and hugs Jimin’s torso, receiving an absent pat in return.

“Wh…What do we do?” Jungkook whispers. He’s throwing a furtive look around the room. His teeth worry at his lower lip, pulling it white and bloodless. “But how did… Hyung, we were _right here_.”

“I know, I know. Okay.” Taehyung inhales deep. Slowly, still glancing around, he sets down the chips and Jimin’s water on the nearest surface (the floor) and then stands with his legs set wide, as if braced for impact at any moment. “Jin-hyung’s still at the market, and everyone else is in their rooms… If we don’t freak out, and quietly call for help, maybe we can all work together and find him.”

“Can’t we just text them?” Jimin whispers back, clutching RJ against his collarbone with huge eyes. The three of them exchange looks before wincing in tandem; they’d all left their phones in their bedrooms.

“Wait, hold on, just think for a moment,” Jungkook jumps in with a frantic wave. “ _Think_. If you were an alien mascot who just popped into existence in the same room as a bunch of screaming strangers…what would you do?”

“Well, personally, I would hide until they left and then run like hell,” Jimin says. Then he frowns a bit. “But Jungkook, this room is wide open. Where could you even find a place to hide?”

“Tata’s smart,” Taehyung reminds him, squinting at the bookshelves against the eastern wall. “He must’ve seen you guys and slipped into a hiding place real quick, so quick you didn’t even notice. He’s a sneaky guy. He could’ve changed into something, even a book or a remote control.”

“Oh.” Jungkook’s eyes widen. “ _Oh_. Shapeshifting. And we—”

He points.

“We…don’t have any cushions on the loveseat.”

The whole room thickens with silence before the boys and the alpaca turn, in one slow motion, to the pillow resting on the loveseat.

The blue, polka-dotted pillow.

A full three seconds tick by, and then the pillow goes flying.

“ _HOLY FUCKING SHI_ —”

The pillow smacks Jimin across the forehead, scrambles over his hair, and then takes a bounding leap off first the couch, then Taehyung’s chest before tumbling into the hallway. Behind him, the living room explodes into chaos. Jungkook dives towards the runaway pillow at the same time Jimin catapults himself off the couch, RJ koala-ed to his chest and squealing. Shouts ring out, echoed by cries and stomping feet down the hallway from their startled hyungs. Taehyung himself yells, “Tata! Tata!” as he dashes after the polka-dot pillow. He trips over Jungkook’s arms and Jimin’s back while in front of his very eyes, the pillow lengthens and grows limbs that scrabble over the hardwood floor. A fully red corner blooms into a heart-shaped head. Now Taehyung catches glimpse of a face — _yellow lips, flat thin brows_ — peeking back at them as Tata continues to run. Yoongi hurls open his door, Tata darts inside right between his legs and Taehyung slides after him the exact same way (much to Yoongi’s squawked indignance).

“Taehyung what the _fu_ — _?!_ ”

“TATA, WAIT!”

Taehyung hops back onto his feet and ignores Yoongi’s open-mouthed glare. Pounding feet echo out in the hallway as the other members bustle together, voices overlapping but Taehyung pays them no mind. He’s sweating as he searches around frantically. The alien has disappeared.

“Tata-yah, it’s okay. We’re friendly! Don’t hide! Please, come out?”

“ _Shit,_ Tata is loose already?” A breathless Namjoon appears in the doorway, flanked by a wide-eyed Jungkook and Jimin. Behind them, Hoseok holds open a blanket at arm’s-length in lieu of a net, mouth set into a determined line. Taehyung turns and nods.

“Don’t scare him, don’t scare him,” he says, glancing around covertly. “Let me try to talk to him, okay? I can do this.”

“ _Beh. Beh!_ ”

RJ lets go of Jimin and plops down onto the floor. Humming empathically under everyone’s puzzled eyes, he waddles into the room and gestures at Taehyung. It takes him a moment, but then Taehyung realizes what the alpaca is trying to convey and nods.

“All right, I’m counting on you,” he says and gives a thumbs-up. “Go for it, RJ.”

Yoongi stares. “You know, I get the feeling that you’re just guessing every single thing he says.”

“ _Shhhh!_ ” RJ shushes him with a wave of his hoof. Yoongi promptly shuts up, and RJ clears his throat. Then follows a string of babbled words, squeaks, and chirrups that nobody can understand but lasts for a good minute. RJ addresses the room as a whole, gesticulating with his hooves. He points at Taehyung, then Jimin, then Jungkook, then the others before shaping a triangle in the air which Taehyung can only assume is meant to be a representation of Seokjin. (Even to the alpaca, the eldest’s shoulders and torso are Dorito-shaped.) RJ concludes his speech with a soft beep and then stands expectantly, looking around.

At first, nothing happens. Then Taehyung hears soft gasps erupt when a pile of dirty laundry moves. Cautiously, one of Yoongi’s undershirts tips back to reveal the twin curves of a heart-shaped head. Black dot-eyes peer at RJ, squinting and wary. The alpaca chirps a happy sound and waves.

“ _Hi!_ ”

Tata just looks between him and the Bangtan boys, suspicious. Sensing his nervousness, Taehyung takes a careful step backwards but freezes when Tata goes rigid. He even holds his breath as Tata shrinks into a polka-dot loaf and makes an unhappy noise. Hoseok, from somewhere behind them, emits a sympathetic, “ _Aigoo_ …” at the sight. RJ hums and pads towards the hiding alien.

“ _Tata_ ,” he says and reaches out his hooves. “ _Nice Tata._ ”

Tata glances at RJ before eyeing the boys again, apprehensive. He mumbles something too intelligible to understand, to which RJ responds with an encouraging hum. With bated breath, everyone watches as slowly, slowly, Tata looks up and stretches out a wiggly blue-and-yellow stub.

And then the doorbell rings.

And in the brief, brief second where everyone jumps and their attention leaps off of him, Tata darts forward and swallows RJ.

Literally. He just _engulfs him._

Before any of the boys can react, the alien’s body flattens and billows out so that he’s able to wrap his own torso around and effectively bag the alpaca. Hoseok screams — RJ’s squeals are muffled — and his small limbs poke lumps in Tata’s polka-dot body as he flails against his new prison. Undeterred, however, Tata pops out about a dozen new legs and makes like a centipede, shooting out of the bedroom underneath the boys’ legs, too fast for them to catch.

“NO!” Taehyung yelps, dashing after the alien and his hostage so fast, he trips and falls. He bangs his chin on the hardwood floor, almost bites his tongue. There are hands on him, Namjoon or Yoongi or someone pulling and tugging him up, asking if he’s all right. But Taehyung shakes them off and ignores the throbbing pain in his face to sprint ahead of the others. He has to catch Tata. He has to.

“I’m hooome,” Seokjin sing-songs as he swings the door open, hefting heavy cloth bags of food. “Who’s down for anchovy tteokbokki?”

“Hyung, don’t let him escape!”

“Huh?” Seokjin blinks, takes half a second to process the oddly-lumpy alien barreling full speed straight at him, and then promptly flings a dumbbell-sized grocery bag at him. Taehyung has to admit: the oldest member’s instincts are most impressive. But unfortunately, Tata proves that he’s not to be stopped. Instead of stumbling, he crushes his eyes shut and takes the groceries to the face (damn, how manly) which only causes him to falter a bit before he rights himself. In the next moment, he’s squeezed around Seokjin and is running out the door. Taehyung emits a strangled scream and crashes out into the hallway. There, he stands panting as Tata pauses, turns, and stares him dead in the face. Huge brown eyes clash with scowling black ones.

Then Tata trips the fire alarm and disappears out the emergency escape right as the sprinklers cascade.

“The journals!” Hoseok cries out, and he and the other two maknaes rush to grab the BT21 notebooks before the water can ruin them.

“Fuck fuck fuck, the _recording equipment!_ ” Yoongi shouts in the meantime; he and Namjoon scramble to save their laptops and sound systems. Which are majorly important, sure — but just for a moment, Taehyung can’t help but resent his hyungs for not going after Tata anyway. Then he stops, backtracks, and flushes red with shame. After all, in the end they’re still idols and musicians, the seven of them. The world — their ARMY — won’t expect them to risk progress on a comeback just for a few fictional characters.

But the thing is, Tata is _his_ fictional character. Taehyung is responsible for him.

“Taehyung?” He turns to see Seokjin standing there with the other grocery bag in his arms. The other one is spilled all over the floor: packaged rice cakes, scallions, a new bottle of gochujang. Seokjin studies the face of his drenched dongsaeng carefully and asks, “You’re not… Oh, kid, you’re not crying, are you?”

“No,” which is the truth. Taehyung isn’t crying. Maybe a small part of him would like to, because Seokjin got it so _easy_ with RJ and Taehyung is honestly kind of jealous…but right now, the biggest concern swirling through his mind is that both RJ and Tata are out there somewhere, and they might be in danger. There’s no time to waste crying over his character’s rejection of him.

So Taehyung steels himself and goes to help Seokjin gather up the food, resolving to gain Tata’s trust no matter what. And, hopefully, before it’s too late.


	3. Chimmy!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Puzzle Star BT21 has given me canon voices for these little cuties and I am so aliiiiiiiive. <3  
> EDIT 6/1/18: I MEANT TO MENTION EARLIER but I started writing this chapter long before the game's release and so it's _also_ confirmed that BT21 traveling through dimensional wormholes is a legitimate thing??? My heart goes whOOOOSH! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> I promise you from the bottom of my heart, this is the most dramatic/angsty this fic will ever get. I honestly didn't even expect it myself, hahaha! [laughing through tears] Expect tons of fluff and bonding to make up for it in the next chapter. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy! <333

This strange new place is scary. Light rain sprinkles down from a gray sky, and though the streets are quite vacant due to the weather, every honk of a car, every sudden voice makes Tata jump and scurry to hide. Tata is doing his best, of course, to be brave and clever for his friends’ sakes. So far he’s managed to maneuver the outside with relative ease, all twelve senses on hyperalert in order to avoid dangerous strangers. Nearby, rain patters loudly across a canvas awning and the sound raises goosebumps on Tata’s spots. It’s so _loud_ here — almost as loud as back on Earth, but that’s precisely the problem. This isn’t Earth. This is a city just like the one where he and his friends all live, but it’s also not. These are humans just like the ones that populate that city, but they’re also _not_.

Wherever this place is, it’s not _their_ Earth, and so it’s _not safe at all_.

Once again, Tata feels shame squeeze his little rubber heart, painful with guilt. The truth is, it’s his fault they even wound up in this mess. He and his friends had wanted to hurry home after a particularly tiring audition for the HitBig™ company. Darn whoever put them as next to last on the list. Shooky had nearly chewed off his own arms from sheer nerves; once they’d finished the hours-long event, everyone was tuckered out wishing for nothing more than some good food and well-earned rest after months of practice. On the bright side, though, Tata does think they all did great! The company reps seemed fascinated by the tiny little animals, clapping enthusiastically after the performance. Chimmy was especially ecstatic about that. He’d chattered to no end about how the lady judge had been so nice, which Tata didn’t mind at all. He likes hearing Chimmy talk.

But then, Tata thinks with visible deflation now, it had been his idea to put Van into warp mode to get them home afterwards. Koya had perked up, fascinated by the idea of zipping along at the speed of light, and so soon enough the rest were more than willing to let Tata work his alien technology.

Only when Tata went to hit the big green button, he forgot that about a week ago, he’d been craving B.L.U.E.-berry smoothies from Coordinates:Planet-M4T0-Dimension227 and thus had switched the settings from warp mode to dimension hop…and then forgot to switch back afterwards.

Ah. Oops.

Needless to say, the group of friends wound up barreling through the fabric of space-time in a kaleidoscope of rainbow light. At first it was exciting, if quite the shock. But then Van began to shudder and creak weirdly, and _that_ had been more than a bit scary. No wonder, either, because she was as exhausted as her seven passengers. Van acts as their speakers and amplifiers during performances, plus their bass player (she hits a mean low _G_ ), _plus_ their first means of transportation. Warp mode would’ve been at least manageable, but the stress of dimension hop proved far too much. Tata fumes; if he’d just been more careful, none of that would’ve ever happened. Some clever alien he’s turned out to be, pah.

Poor Van, though. Despite her incoming shutdown, the AI had guided him, instructing him to punch in Coordinates:Planet-E2784-DimensionMW71 — the closest, safest location that she calculated she could land. Tata remains skeptical, since her screens indicated both dimension and planet are a combined _76_ on the Interdimensional Safety Scale. Not too promising, if he’s to be frank. But again, they had no other option, so Tata did the best he could. Acting like the fearless spaceship leaders he’s seen on TV, he ushered his friends into the safety pods, soothing them with reassurances that everything would be fine. Then he strapped their seatbelts (making sure to secure Shooky extra-well so that the cookie wouldn’t get bounced to pieces) and hopped into his own, while Van set similar values on all their pods so that they’ll end up in the same place.

After that, it was just a matter of holding on tight. Tata remembers a giant force slammed _oof_ against his chest; a gazillion stars swirling outside his pod; his face pressed up against the window, staring tearfully as Van shuddered and burst into pieces with an inaudible _pop_ ; and then…and then…!

Well.

Waking up, he supposes.

Tata recalls a bright flash as he entered the wormhole — then falling flat on his face. Onto a couch. No pod, no outer space, and worst of all, none of his friends in sight. But he did hear the voices of several unfamiliar beings, frightening close by. At once his instincts kicked in so that in less than an instant Tata transformed into the first inconspicuous thing he could think of ( _a pillow, to match the couch_ ). For a few heart-pounding seconds, he held rock-still to make absolutely sure that nobody had noticed him. Only when the voices continued to chatter away did he peek over.

What he found made him gasp.

 _RJ_ : clutched in the lap of a humanoid alien, playing video games with a second. Beyond, Tata could see the shadow of a third clattering around what looked to be a kitchen. Oh, no. Oh, _no_. Mixed feelings swarmed Tata’s small body. He was thrilled that RJ seemed unharmed, but fearful and nervous towards these humanoids. These Planet-E2784 humanoids definitely resemble the ones from Earth, but for all he knows, these might be alternate versions that spit acid, morph into animals, or eat alpacas! Or lop-eared bunnies, or puppy dogs in hoodies, or heart-headed aliens such as himself! When they chased after him, it was one of the single most horrifying experiences Tata has ever gone through, which is saying something considering how well-traveled he is. Even RJ’s gentle reassurances that _they’re friendly, Tata!_ aren’t enough to convince him. Yeah, he’ll be the eventual judge of that, thanks very much.

If the humanoids have any diabolical plans up their seemingly-friendly sleeves, Tata isn’t about to stick around and find out.

So, he’d done what any reasonable alien would’ve done: stuffed RJ into his stomach-pocket and then run like hell. Operation Escape — _success_.

Hence, Tata is now making his slow way to somewhere safe, however safe this unfamiliar place may be. He sticks to walls, flattens himself against manholes and lamp-posts, and not even the still-kicking lump that is RJ can hinder his ultra-stealth abilities. He makes it past three more blocks, crab-scurrying across puddless, empty roads and even a railroad before he spots the entryway into a park. Huffing, Tata rushes towards it and dives into the bushes. There: they ought to be okay here, so long as these plants don’t turn out to be carnivorous. But after careful investigation and even a cautious poke, the drippy green leaves stay dormant and Tata heaves a sigh.

Flopping onto the grass, he pops RJ out of his stomach-pocket with ease. The alpaca bounces twice before landing with a soft _poof_ on his cottony rump, still perfectly dry and fluffy; Tata had remembered to switch off his saliva glands. The heart-alien then squeezes his eyes shut as RJ wheels around to smack his head in indignant anger — and to hug him close. Oh. Okay. Tata likes hugs, they’re always good. He thinks maybe he needed one, too.

“ _Tatata…_ (Sorry…),” he whispers in a tiny voice, and he really means it. Not only for putting RJ in his stomach-pocket, either — but for the accidental dimension hop, the space pods, and just…everything. RJ hums a reproach (Tata’s stomach-pocket is dark and smells like bananas and never, _ever_ do that again) but even so gently pats the alien on the head. Tata smiles, then pulls Van’s remote from his actual clothes-pocket.

On the front is a lock button, like that for a car. He flips the device around to instead activate the homing signal on the back. Huddled shoulder-to-shoulder, RJ and Tata listen to the signal’s electric hum for awhile. No Van. Heart racing, Tata tries hitting a different switch. The remote pops open to reveal a small radar screen, extending an antenna that spins and beeps every other second.

Big blinking letters appear: _LOCATING_ . . .

And then, almost immediately after that, they change to: _DISASSEMBLANCE DETECTED_ . . .

A pixelated image of Van popping her limbs on and off accompanies the message, which then switches to a heart-wrenching _ACTIVE; SIGNAL NOT FOUND_ before the screen blanks out entirely. Even so, Tata hunches over and squeezes the remote tight to his chest with a relieved whimper. She’s all right. _She’s all right._ Van is all right, _thank_ _goodness_ — but she’s also out of commission, which means that for now they will be on their own. In an alternate dimension. With no way home.

This sure has turned out one heck of an unexpected adventure.

RJ chirrups then, sounding concerned, and Tata looks up at the hoof that touches his shoulder. RJ hums and rubs Tata’s arm in a comforting gesture. Raindrops bead in his fur, gathered into a glistening gem on his nose. Tata sighs, pockets the Van Remote, and wraps his polka-dot arms around (and around and around) RJ’s fluffy stomach. His friend feels warm and wonderful when he leans into the hug.

“ _Tatataa? Ta-ta?_ (Shooky? Koya?),” Tata questions softly. But RJ hums again and shakes his head, raindrops flying, eyebrows slanting into an apologetic expression. Tata sighs again but nods, then notices the little white dot of a plane far overhead, streaking through gray clouds as it soars through the damp, alien sky. As he watches it, the soft beeping of Van’s remote pressed to his heart, Tata feels resolve build into steel within him. And alongside that resolve — familiar eagerness stirs.

Well.

Unexpected adventure is still adventure, isn’t it?

* * *

“Tata-yah! Here, Tata, RJ! Tata-yaaaaaah!”

No luck. The rain swallows up Taehyung’s voice and he receives no reply beyond the drumming of water against his umbrella. Footsteps splash towards him and Taehyung turns to see Jimin, grim-faced, lips pale and parted slightly as he pants. His jacket is deep blue against the bright gray of the sky; a small, black backpack bounces against his shoulder blades, lightweight, spotted with water.

“Any sign of them?”

“Nuh-uh,” Taehyung says, shaking his head. “But I know they couldn’t have gotten far. RJ’s light, but he’s not _that_ light.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Jimin can’t help a grin at the comment. “Well, don’t let Jin-hyung hear you say that, he’ll kill you,” he chuckles. Then his smile turns just a bit sadder and he reaches out to squeeze Taehyung’s shoulder. “Yah, Taetae. Don’t worry, okay? We’ll find them for sure!”

“Jimin, Taehyung-ah! Over here!”

The sound of Seokjin’s voice makes them snap around. Through the dribbling rain Seokjin’s yellow-and-white umbrella huddles beneath one of the saplings planted along the sidewalk, like a gigantic striped mushroom. Taehyung and Jimin rush over, hand-in-hand where they duck under Taehyung’s umbrella, and Seokjin peers up at them as they approach. He points and asks, “This look like anything to you?”

Teensy round footprints scrabble across the mud around the sapling’s roots — as though made by stubby little legs. Taehyung feels his breath catch.

“Tata,” he says, and Jimin nods and nods, hope lighting up his flushed face.

“Where’s Namjoon-hyung?” he asks, and Seokjin stands to gesture at the figure ahead of them, further down the street. If Taehyung squints, he can just make out the green blob that is Namjoon’s backpack. Neither he nor Seokjin wear one; their blank notebooks are tucked into Jimin’s with Chimmy, along with a parka for RJ when they find him in this chilly weather.

“He went on to scout ahead. I just hung back for you two to catch up. Did you find any clues where Tata and RJ might be headed?”

“Mm…take this with a grain of salt, hyung, but it sorta looks as if they’re headed towards Namsan Park. They’re taking a _really_ criss-crossy, meandering path, but the general direction seems to be that way,” Jimin says, pulling up the map app on his phone. Taehyung peers over his shoulder and his eyes widen.

“Yeah… Yeah, I can see that!” he exclaims eagerly. “Think about it. Namsan’d be the best place to hide right now, wouldn’t it? If they hide in a building, or an alleyway or someplace like that, people are more likely to find them…but in a park, on a rainy day? I love Tata, he’s so smart!”

Jimin grins and looks at Seokjin, whose lips are pursed in thought. He says, “What do you think, hyung? Is it worth checking out?”

Seokjin nibbles on his lower lip and glances between the two younger boys, eyes narrowed. “I do admit it sounds like it could be worth a shot…but Namsan is still a _huge_ area to cover, remember. And on the off chance they _aren’t_ there, we might lose precious time searching around the park when they’ve run over to an entirely different neighborhood of the city. In which case…”

The ‘95-line exchanges nervous glances, the two friends having a sneaking suspicion what Seokjin is about to say. Indeed, just as suspected, Seokjin murmurs as if to himself, “We might need to split up.”

Brief silence descends, smothered flat by the rain. Jimin fingers the strap of his backpack anxiously; the boys had decided to split up into groups, four going out to search for Tata and RJ, the others remaining behind in case any other BT21 characters decided to pop into reality. It was a hard decision whether or not to bring Chimmy and Koya’s notebooks, but Namjoon reasoned that it would be easier for the four of them to handle two little friends — the friendlier and more trusting ones at that — than to leave a total of five freaked-out characters to just three people. Taehyung isn’t sure how much he likes the idea of them splitting up further, though. They’ll cover more ground, yes, but either pair will also have a harder time catching the two runaways if they do find them.

But they’re losing time, and so he nods frantically. “Okay. Okay, hyung. Jimin and I will take a shortcut to Namsan Park first. You and Namjoon-hyung can keep looking around this area.”

“Sounds good, I’ll fill him in. Good luck, you two.” Then Seokjin tucks the handle of his umbrella against the crook of his shoulder to pull them both in for a hug. He pats their wet hair before letting go and stepping back. His eyes are big and soft. “Come back safe — _all_ of you. All right?”

“We will, hyung,” Jimin says, firm. He and Taehyung lace their hands together once more. “Let’s go, Taetae.” Together, they hurry around the corner, following the directions from Jimin’s phone to the park.

* * *

 _At least_ , Tata thinks drowsily, _RJ is okay._ Plus he makes a really comfy pillow: Tata leans against his friend as they wait out the rain under the bushes, RJ more than happy to let the alien doze off on his cottony chest. They have to cuddle for warmth, though, Tata’s arms (and half his elastic body) wrapped like a blanket around RJ while the alpaca shivers and mumbles with the cold. Tata wishes he’d thought to snatch a blanket from the humanoids’ house. But he hadn’t, and so they have to make do.

Fat raindrops spatter onto and around them, trickling off the green leaves. Tata startles awake more than once when a spurt of ice-cold water drops onto his heart-shaped head. He curls around RJ, feeling Van’s remote poke into his stomach. It should be okay for them to nap for just a few short minutes. He knows he should get up and move, should head out to look for his friends…but now that all the excitement has finally caught up with him, he feels sooo sleepy. Speaking of — it was evening when they left home, but here the brightness of the sky suggests it’s sometime midday…? Gee, no wonder he’s this tired. It’s way past his bedtime…

“ _Tata_ ,” RJ chirps all of a sudden. Tata whines at the hoof that shakes him gently. “ _Tata, Tata! Wake up_.”

Tata cracks open a bleary eye and peeks at RJ’s face, rosy from the cold. They’re both quite wet now, water weighing RJ’s fur almost flat. But the alpaca gives himself an impressive shake — spraying Tata in the face — and instantly his fur poofs out, considerably damp but fluffy still. He clucks and pokes at the remote in Tata’s lap.

“ _Look!_ ”

Tata rubs his face and glances down — and at once his eyes go big. The remote, which had been chiming at only slow, sluggish intervals with its attempts to pick up any trace of the AI, has picked up speed as the letters now flash a brand-new message. The radar antenna trembles and points in one specific direction, the green pixelated screen blinking over and over. Tata feels his heart overflow with hope upon the words shown: _SIGNAL DETECTED — LOW CONNECTION._

“ _Tata!_ (Van!),” Tata cries aloud, eager and excited. The radar quavers for another minute or so before it blips out entirely, a message of _SIGNAL LOST_ appearing before his eyes. But that was fine — one of Van’s disassembled parts must’ve landed not far off and came back online for a time, however weak! Tata flips open the remote and RJ watches entranced as the alien’s stub-hands fly over a mini-keyboard, pinpointing the AI’s last coordinates to an address that can be input into GPS. The moment the red dot pops on-screen, he jumps up and tells RJ that they have to go find her at once. The alpaca nods, happy to follow wherever Tata leads, determined to help as well. Tata’s heart races within his polka-dot chest. They must get to her fast before her leftover battery-power depletes and she becomes that much harder to locate and reassemble, leaving the seven friends with no way home and Van to be plucked up for scrap metal.

Silently, fiercely, Tata promises himself he’ll never, ever let that happen.

“ _Ta, tata!_ (Let’s go, RJ!!)”

* * *

“I really hope the kids are doing better than we are,” Namjoon murmurs after a brief silence. Seokjin has to agree; their search mission has become more than a bit frustrating. It’s been about twenty minutes since they split up with Jimin and Taehyung, and the two older boys can’t say they’ve had any breakthroughs. The tracks Tata left behind are few and far in between, not to mention the alien has apparently no care whatsoever for the laws of human physics. About a mere ten minutes earlier, they’d gawked at a trail of muddy, Tata-like tracks left on a windowsill and up the side of a building. A bit of white fuzz had been caught on a chain-link fence, too — probably coughed up by Tata, his tummy tickled by RJ’s fur. Aside from that, they have nothing. “And I keep feeling like I need to look over my shoulder every few seconds, just to make sure Koya hasn’t suddenly popped up. Ugh…this is so much more craziness than I expected to happen when I woke up this morning.”

He sighs and Seokjin resists the urge to chuckle at the leader’s baffled expression. But he does offer a sympathetic smile and pats the younger boy’s shoulder.

“Tell _me_ about it. You think I was expecting to discover a thigh-high alpaca eating all my bread?”

“He really is your character, hyung,” Namjoon admits, a small grin crossing his face now. “I mean, seriously. His first reaction to being surrounded by a bunch of freaky two-legged creatures is to demand they feed him? Sounds exactly like something you would do, to be honest, heh.”

“ _Yah!_ I resent that!” Seokjin pulls back his hand to punch Namjoon’s shoulder in mock anger, and this time he succeeds in drawing out an actual laugh. Namjoon’s cheeks dimple, and Seokjin relaxes, dropping his arm. But then, after a few seconds, he adds in a quiet tone, “You know…between you and me, Joon-ah, with all the excitement I still can’t help but wonder how all this will end. I mean, sure, it’s soooo cute and RJ is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen! But…what if the kids want to keep them? Don’t get me wrong, I kind of do too! But they can hardly be our _pets_ , they’re so sentient, and anyways we can get so busy even for pets at all. Remember Yeontannie, how devastated Taetae was to give him to his family? I don’t want to see his teary face for another week like that aga—”

“Wait. Hyung, quiet. Do you hear that?”

Seokjin freezes when Namjoon jerks up a hand, the leader’s eyes wide and startled. For a moment, they stand motionless, straining their ears for any trace of sound beyond the loud rush of rain. Water gushes along the street, pouring noisily into the storm drains. Seokjin frowns and struggles to hear whatever it is Namjoon detected.

Then.

He hears it.

“ _Bip-bip-bip. Beep, beep, beep. Bip-bip-bip._ ”

Again. And again. Repeating, a continuous cycle of beeped dots and dashes. Seokjin blinks and furrows his brow. He swears the pattern of the sound is almost familiar, as though he’s heard it before, maybe in a movie or something. “Morse code…?” he breathes. “Namjoon-ah, what could—”

But Namjoon has already darted out from under their shared umbrella, making a beeline for a nearby coffee shop. The shop itself is closed, blinds drawn and windows dark. Seokjin spots the trash cans lined outside, however, as well as the awning that keeps them dry, and he gasps almost hard enough to choke.

“What in the world?” he sputters, mouth dropping open at the sight before him. “What happened here?!” A huge hole has torn clean through the awning, ripping the cloth from its metal frame so that the corner flaps in the breeze. The most bewildering part by far, though, is the singed edges of the hole. Burnt synthetic fabric emits an acrid stench, though the rain has long extinguished the embers. Underneath, four trash cans have been knocked over as if a massive weight had hurtled straight into them. Quite a few are scorched; Namjoon squats down beside one that’s been banged to shit, fallen onto its side and rolled a short ways away. His lips part in a stunned, wondering line. Seokjin suddenly notices that the beeping is very, very loud here. “Joon-ah, be careful!”

“I will, hyung,” he replies. Thus, with cautious hands, Namjoon shuffles aside half-melted plastic cups and ashy napkins to release the stink of smoke. Seokjin coughs, waves it away and leans down to cover Namjoon with their umbrella. The hole in the awning yawns directly above, rain drizzling down onto the boys. Those patterned beeps waver, then quiet down completely as Namjoon moves away a paper plate and its discarded slice of cake, both charred into a black lump. Then two sharp, disbelieving intakes of breath cut through the air before Namjoon reaches in and pulls out a basketball-sized hunk of dirty, dented metal.

Twin shades of gray and chrome-white. Eyes in different X-O shapes. Domed like an onion.

Hushed with absolute shock, Namjoon whispers, “Van?”

The metal eyes flicker yellow light on and off, timed to the tones, as the robot’s head comes to life with a soft whirr. “ _Bip-bip-bip, beep. Bip-beep. Beep-bip._ ”

“Oh,” Seokjin whispers. “Oh, Van, what happened to you…?” He huddles closer to shield the robot’s head, which Namjoon tucks against his shirt to try and wipe carbonized frosting from her face.

“The trash is all burned but the metal’s cold,” he remarks, tone soft. “I think she must’ve been out here a couple hours.”

“Poor thing.” Seokjin kneels and tilts his head when he realizes he can peer up the open neck area, where the cogs and gearwheels of Van’s inner mechanisms can be seen spinning jerkily. “Her head just popped off, though? That…seems unlikely, to say the least.”

“Maybe. Either way, we should let Taehyung-ah know we’ve found her, too. Van is technically his as well as mine, since she’s Tata’s robot.”

The AI’s eyes flash. The tones sound again, this time with a seemingly frantic note: “ _BEEP. BIP-BEEP. BEEP. BIP-BEEP._ ”

“Whoa, whoa, Van, it’s fine! It’s all right!” Seokjin stammers, unsure what he and Namjoon should do. If there’s a certain way to comfort an emotionally-upset robot, he sure as hell doesn’t know it. “T-Tata, is that it? You heard Namjoon say that. Do you want Tata?”

“ _Beep… Bip-beep… Beep… Bip-beep…_ ”

“I think that’s it,” Namjoon says. “Okay. Van? We’re gonna take you back to our home, Jin-hyung and me. It’s not safe for you to lie out here in the wet anyway. Tata’s not with us right now, but our friends are looking for him, and for RJ too. Please trust us, okay? I promise we’re not going to hurt you.”

The robot is silent for a moment, long enough that the two boys exchange worried looks, thinking that maybe she had run out of power; the muted whirr of her cogs had ground to a halt, too. But then a mechanical hum rumbles beneath Namjoon’s hands and her eyes flicker once. The subsequent tones are faint and feeble, with an undertone that leans towards a warbled chirrup that Namjoon suspects is Van’s actual usual voice, rather than these methodic dot-dash codes. Regardless, still she sounds off, “ _Beep, beep, beep… Beep-bip-beep…_ ”

“Good robot.” Namjoon gives her an awkward but sincere pat on the head, and so with a gentle hiss the robot powers down to conserve energy, the glow of her eyes fading to a neutral dark. Only the left continues to flash dim light every other second, like a computer on sleep mode. Namjoon shares a look with Seokjin before standing, Van’s metallic head cradled delicately in his arms.

“Can you text Taehyung-ah? I think he’ll be happy to hear we at least got Van safe and sound.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Seokjin says with a nod. He tucks the umbrella into the crook of his elbow in order to pull out his phone — but then he switches on the screen and pales upon the list of unseen notifications there. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit shit _shit_.”

“What?! What’s wrong?”

“It’s Tae and Jiminie.” Seokjin whips his phone around to show Namjoon, open to his last texts from Taehyung. “Chimmy got out. They need our help.”

* * *

“How are you holding up, Taehyung-ah?”

“Fine.” Taehyung sniffs and swipes the back of his hand across his nose. “Well…I’ll be fine after we bring Tata and RJ back. Right now I’m just kinda worried about them…”

Jimin gives him a kind smile and squeezes his hand. They walk fast, pressed up to one another beneath Taehyung’s umbrella. In the distance between the buildings, Jimin thinks he can make out the blurry green figures of Namsan Park’s trees.

“Me too, but it’ll be all right. I bet you and Tata-yah will be best friends after this.”

Taehyung grins at that, and Jimin feels himself relax a bit upon seeing that. Good, if Taehyung’s spirits are kept up, they can’t lose. _Don’t lose heart, Taehyung-ah. Fighting._ “Mm! I love RJ a lot, he’s the best alpaca…but I really can’t wait to make friends with Tata. He means a lot, he’s special. The design I made him from, you know it’s very important to me, Jiminie.”

“I know. You’re both very alike.”

“We are!” A thought seems to occur to Taehyung then. “We won’t be as good friends as you and me, though, Jimin-ah.”

“Heh. I know that, too, Taetae.”

“Mmhmm.” Taehyung beams wide and boxy. He sing-songs, “I’m glad then!”

Jimin snorts and bumps him onto the curb with his shoulder, prompting Taehyung to of course shove him back so that he almost falls over into a puddle. Engrossed in this, it’s hardly a wonder that at first they fail to notice over the gurgling storm drains the faintest little _pop_ that sounds behind them — and the small, yellow figure who falls and slides along the sloping curb, the pavement too slippery for him to gain any traction.

(It’s raining so hard.)

Chimmy’s first thought is that it’s chilly and wet — so, so wet. Van’s space pod had been warm and dry, at least for the short time he was in there. But now… He yelps, whines and tries to right his footing, but rainwater rushes down the sidewalk in a flood and he’s too small and disoriented to put up a proper fight. His paws slip so that his head bumps, eliciting from him a cry of fright and pain. Chimmy has the vague awareness of people stopping, voices rising in confusion, then bewilderment. But the only thing he can focus on is how he rolls over the slippery curb to land — _splash!_ — on his back, where the rainwater breaks his fall and here the roar of it is even stronger, louder, hurting his ears. The current carries him further along, too fast for him to realize what’s happening. The pup cries out and kicks. He hears someone shouting his name, but doesn’t recognize the voice. Nonetheless, he calls out for help.

“ _Y-Yip! Yip!_ ” he squeaks, panicking. Water splashes into his face, dirties his hoodie. It rushes cold into his ears so he hears in bursts the voices yelling after him. Beyond that, however, is the echoey, hollow _whoooosh_ of liquid into a cavern. Chimmy smells metal, smells grime and dirt and mud and finally realizes in a nauseous bolt of terror where the current is taking him.

_The storm drain is just big enough for him to fall in._

“CHIMMY!” screams someone’s voice — a boy. “CHIMMY, GRAB THE EDGE! HOLD ON!”

 _Grab the edge_. Chimmy can’t right himself, can’t kick against the current. But he _can_ feel the bump of the cast iron plate under him as he slides further towards the grate opening, and straightaway he hooks his tiny paws into the slots and _holds on._ It works: Chimmy jerks to a halt, and now the only problem is the torrent of ice-cold rainwater pouring against his face. He scrunches his eyes shut against the deluge so he can only hear the voices as they hurry close, muffled by the rain and his own streaking heart.

“Hang on, Chimmy, hang on! Jimin, _Jimin_ , _hurry_ , he’s too small, I don’t know if I can get my hands in without knocking him—!”

“I’ll try then, I’ll try! Chimmy? Tae, call Jin-hyung, the water’s freezing…! Chimmy, I’m going to get you out. Don’t wiggle around, okay, I won’t be able to reach in and hold you. There, there…”

 _Hands_ : warm-hot, gentle, squeezing over his head, shoved between him and the grate’s concrete edges. Trying to tug his paws from their grip on the grate. Frightened, Chimmy struggles to hold on tighter and manages to raise his head above the surging water to _yip_ frantically, kicking his small legs. Tension strains the stranger’s — Jimin’s — voice when he shushes the puppy.

“It’s okay, it’s _okay_. Chimmy, I need you to let go. I can’t get you out otherwise.”

 _Let go?_ No no no, it’s the only thing keeping him from falling! The pressure pries his aching grip loose from the grate, little by little, and these hands won’t be able to catch him, he can _feel_ it. But Jimin keeps urging him, and his voice is warm, and Chimmy doesn’t want to stay under the pouring rain anymore, it’s so, so _cold_. So, with a tiny whimper, he holds his breath and then lets go.

For a moment, Jimin’s hands grab onto him, tight round his belly, under his arms.

But — _ah_ — the yellow velvet of his hoodie has gone slimy, slippery from the filthy rainwater, and to a chorus of two boys’ shrieks and one pup’s squeal, Chimmy slides out of Jimin’s grasp and down the storm drain.

“Fuck, NO, FUCK!” he hears the voice roar as he plummets into the dark. Chimmy flails, turns onto his side, and lets out a harsh _ow!_ when he feels himself land onto a jutting concrete ledge. He does bounce a little — he’s such a soft, fluffy puppy — then curls into a ball, whimpering and crying quietly. The drain smells; the rush of water still bellows in his ears, splashing every so often over him. But he can see the grate opening several feet above him, as well as the frightened faces crowded there, thrown into shadow.

“Fu-u-uck,” Jimin gasps, entire face crumpling in relief. “He’s all right, holy _shit, he’s not hurt_. Chimmy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

His voice trails off, and Chimmy sniffles and whines loud enough for them to hear. He forgives them; they tried their best. He just wants to get _outoutout._

“Chimmy?” The other boy, messy silver hair and long eyelashes. His face is pale and worried. “Don’t be scared — we’re gonna get you out, promise. Jiminie, I texted Jin-hyung, they’re on their way. But he’s so far down…I don’t know if even Namjoon-hyung can reach him.”

“We can’t. The drain must be eight feet deep, maybe even more,” is the distraught reply. “We’re gonna have to figure something else out, _damn_ it.”

“O-Okay. All right.” A pause. “I… Maybe I can… Jimin, wait here, I think I have an idea. It’s a long shot, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Taehyung, what—”

“Just keep talking to Chimmy! Don’t leave him alone! Chimmy-yah, I’ll be back! Don’t cry, you’ll be okay. Don’t cry! I’ll be right back! I swear it!”

“Taehyung!” Footsteps crunch wet gravel as the shadow disappears and Taehyung runs off. Chimmy hugs his knees to his chest and tearfully rubs water from his ears, the grate darkening once more as Jimin leans to peer down at him, distressed. Still, he struggles to keep the fear out of his voice, opting for a soothing tone instead.

“Chimmy…can you hear me? I — I’m Jimin. I’m your friend. Taehyung is, too. We’re gonna help you out. My hyung will cook you food after this, ha, I know he will, and he’ll chew me and Tae out for letting this happen too. I’m _so_ sorry, this is my fault. I never should’ve brought the… Forget it. Ugh, forget it. Chimmy, you’ll be all right.”

Chimmy sniffs and lets out another plaintive _yip_. He sees Jimin reach his arm into the drain, dirty and dripping now, but reaching nonetheless. He knows the boy is trying to comfort him, and appreciates it, albeit just a little at the moment. It’s dark. It’s scary. He wants his friends.

“You’ll be all right. Just hang in there, Chimmy. Hang on. Jimin’s here, baby, Jiminie’s here. Hang on.”

* * *

 

Several streets away, Tata suddenly gets a very, very bad feeling.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M AN AWFUL PERSON, GOODBYE. [PEACES OUT]


	4. Koya!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the wait on this. It's been a tough couple months for me, both mentally and academically, but still I wrote as much as possible whenever I could, and so here we are at long last!!! <3 It's more than twice as longer as usual at a whopping +11K words to make up for the wait. Nonetheless, I hope you guys like it!!

Soft scents of fragrant bread and frosting take on an acrid hint from the rain. The roof drums an incessant beat that patters and carries beneath pop-music ambience. Behind the window, trays of sugar cookies sit ribboned into colorful plastic bags. Rainy days always mean slow days here at the bakery. Lunchtime did lure a few patrons inside for paninis and coffee cake, their drippy umbrellas stored in a marked bin. But now the shop is vacant, drowsy and placid, with none but its two employees present to wait out the storm.

“So, let’s assume that ‘DNA’ is not, in fact, another entry to the Most Beautiful Moment in Life series, which knowing Bangtan is a pretty _big_ assumption right there. I bet there’s still a crapton of hidden meanings in here that’s just gone over my head. I mean — the things people are saying about ‘Answer’ and ‘Epiphany’ and all of that, about it being hints for their next comeback? Well, I don’t know anything except it sure sounds like a huge _hmmmmm_ to me.”

Munhee watches, bemused, as Seoyun skips back ten seconds on the YouTube video. Where the former, younger girl is slim with baby-doll fringe, the older stands tall, long-legged, her hair pulled into a high bouncy ponytail. They stand behind the counter sipping drinks, matched out in cute brown aprons. The lights of the display case, which shows off trays of the bakery’s best pastries, illuminate the two girls’ faces in a creamy glow.

“Ah, well. At least nobody’s dying this time around?” Munhee throws out tentatively. She has a vague memory of a scene from one of the music videos Seoyun showed her, where a boy stabbed his father with a broken bottle. That had been a surprise, to say the least. Seoyun gives a thoughtful hum and squints into the distance.

“Well, I guess it’d also be great to get a break from the heavier storyline! Just to finally be able to relax and enjoy the song, without worrying about hints or hidden clues or multiverse-slash-time-traveling theories, wahh.” Seoyun laughs. “Don’t get me wrong, Munhee-yah. The Most Beautiful Moment is _forever_ , which I _love_. All I’m saying is, you’re not gonna hear complaints from me about just plain ol’ BTS doing their thing, you know?”

Munhee gives a shy smile in response, which Seoyun returns with a crinkly-eyed beam. Though two years Munhee’s senior, Seoyun is cheerful and compassionate, and her fiery personality fascinates Munhee despite herself, drawing her like a magnet. Plus her eonnie only ever pulls the age card to tease about Munhee’s height, which is more than can be said for Munhee’s dumb big brother Gi-kyung. On many occasions now, they’ve taken breaks where Seoyun will sit and tutor Munhee on integrated calculus. It’d be a lie to say that the latter doesn’t look up to the older girl somewhat. And she mixes a damn good cappuccino besides.

“Ah, hey, I’m gonna take a quick bathroom break, okay?” Seoyun says. She swipes out of the theory compilation video and hands her phone to Munhee. “Here, put on any song you want! I’ll be back real fast!”

“Okay. Have a safe trip, eonnie,” Munhee deadpans. Seoyun rolls her eyes and the younger girl cracks another smile, this time slightly bigger before the older girl trots off. A door swings shut in the back. Music starts to fill the empty spaces of the bakery, continuing over the speakers. Munhee leans against the display case, taking a slow sip of her caramel cappuccino as she reaches for the phone.

Seoyun is sometimes rather hard to keep up with, but then something about her over-excitability rings fond even for the introverted Munhee. Honestly, it’s kind of admirable. Seoyun all but bubbles over with passion, especially when it comes to her three greatest loves in life: math, competitive soccer, and BTS. The day they first met, she’d zeroed onto the Hip-Hop Monster keychain on Munhee’s bookbag with eagle eyes, then jumped the young girl with puppyish eagerness. Munhee reacted with shock and not a little embarrassment. She just found the white cat adorable with its droopy eyes and snapback; she didn’t even know it was BTS-related. (Plus it had been on sale for a mere ₩4,500, a total _steal_.) In the weeks since, Seoyun has proven herself as diehard an ARMY as they come — just as she’s also turned out to be a really good friend.

 _Still,_ Munhee thinks as she searches up a Claude Debussy song, _it feels almost a bit intimidating sometimes… I wonder if I’ll ever feel as strongly about anything as Seoyun-eonnie does about BTS…_

_BAM!_

With a squeak, Munhee drops the phone. It smacks onto the glass display case and startles the man in the doorway as well. He pants, bent over his knees as he drips what promises to be a considerably-sized puddle onto the welcome mat. Water clumps bangs the color of tarnished silver, plasters his T-shirt to the soft contours of his chest and belly. Long eyelashes flutter with every blink, beaded with rain. Something about him seems almost familiar to Munhee: the faintest tickle of déjà-vu.

He’s very handsome.

He’s also very, visibly upset.

She gasps and tries not to stare.

“U-Um,” says the man. His voice thrums deep and frantic. “You’re open, right? Are you open?”

“Er,” Munhee stammers. Her hands hover in front of her face, flushed and uncertain. _He’s…He’s really… Oh, wow…_

“I searched on Naver, the closest bakery, and ran here,” the man ( _or boy? He looks only a little older than Seoyun-eonnie_ ) speaks in such a rush that his words jumble into incorrect grammar, sentence phrases all out of order. “Bread, I need? Do you sell bread? It, uh, it’s an e-emergency.” He stutters, eyes tight and damp as sharp shivers wrack his body. One hand clutches a wet phone — still powered on to Naver Maps — and all at once Munhee’s fearful bewilderment trickles away for concern to take its place. She swallows hard and nudges half a step out from behind the counter.

“Y-Yeah, we do,” she says. “But do you…ah, do you need help? Police?”

“ _No_ , no!” the man cries, but then he notices how Munhee flinches and gentles his tone right away. His wide-eyed expression turns apologetic. “I mean, no, thank you. Sorry, I’m sorry. But my…um, my…dog…? He’s…he got lost and I have to find him quick.”

“Your dog?”

His lower lip wobbles and Munhee feels a flicker of panic raise the hair on her arms. Oh no, he can’t cry, he can’t! She’s no good at comforting people at all! To her relief, though, the man doesn’t, simply croaks out, “It’s my fault. I scared him, and he ran out. With my hyung’s dog, too.” He sniffles and runs his palm against his stomach, as if trying to smooth the water out of his shirt. “But, but, my hyung’s, he likes, uh… Hyung’s dog likes bread. So I thought, I just—”

“Oh.”

This time, sympathy comes as a sharp and bemused taste on Munhee’s tongue. She has a puppy at home too, a bratty little mutt named Moja who sadly also happens to be the love of her life. She’s still wary, of course (as one should be when a soaked, panicked stranger barges into the building when you’re alone) but at least now the man’s desperate mannerisms make some sense. Then the pieces click together and Munhee can’t resist; she bites back a little laugh.

“Ah-ha, I think I get it. You want to use bread to lure your hyung’s dog back, is that right?”

The man-boy nods so fast that water sprays from his hair. Hope ignites faint as a candleflame along his striking features, and Munhee feels herself automatically offer a tiny smile, which he returns after a hesitant moment. Then it drops as his eyes widen in horror.

“Oh _no_ , but I— My wallet’s with Jimin—”

“That, that’s okay!” Munhee fumbles to reassure him. Hurrying behind the counter again, she grabs one of the newly-baked baguettes. Shoving it into one of the long wrapping pre-made for the loaves, she pushes this into the man’s wet arms and her heart swells at the stunned look he aims at the bread, then at her. Munhee fights the heat creeping up her neck, her throat dry and flustered.

“Here,” she mumbles, unable to meet his eye as she pats the green paper packaging. “I’m— I’m really not supposed to, but it’s been a slow day anyways. And just one shouldn’t hurt. Just, just, don’t tell anybody, okay? I could get in big trouble if the manager finds out…”

“You’re so nice,” says the man after a moment, tone utterly awed. Munhee’s heart performs a triple backflip and now she has no way to combat how her neck flushes from throat to collarbone. The man adds, very grave, “Thank you. I will return and pay for it, promise.”

“Mmhm. Don’t worry about it. I, um, I hope you find your dog, mister.”

“I hope so, too. Thank you, thank you again!”

The man bobs several bows before he runs out into the downpour once more, hugging the baguette to his chest. Munhee waves him off from the window at the same time a door _clunk_ s in the back, and then Seoyun waltzes out with damp hands. Straightaway the older girl stops and peers around. Finding nothing, she looks at Munhee, first quizzical, then outright suspicious.

“What’d I miss?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you covering your face?”

“M’not covering my face.” Munhee drops her hands from her face. Plays with her hair. Ruffles out her bangs. Pulls two locks over her lip to give herself a fake mustache, and turns even more pink. “Okay, actually! So! A boy…just came in.”

Seoyun’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. A slow grin begins to wiggle across her face. She chortles, “Oh-ho- _ho? Really now?_ Wait, no, did he already leave?! Awww, he did, damn… But what happened? Did he give you his number? Ooh, did _you_ give _him_ your number, Munhee-yah?”

“Ahhh, eonnie, stop teasing, nothing like that happened! He was looking for his dog, that’s all… Just…h’was cute, too…”

“Aw, come _on!_ Are you telling me I didn’t get to see a cute dog, _or_ a cute boy, _or_ my hoobae getting all blushy and soft?!” Seoyun plops onto a bar stool where she huffs and clicks her tongue. “That’s it, no more bathroom breaks for _ever_. The universe just robbed me of a super precious moment and I refuse to let it win. This means _war_ , universe!”

Munhee covers her pink face again, this time to hide a laugh. “Eonnie, ahh…you’re crazy…”

“Yah, I’m your ride home! Don’t attack me!” Seoyun sighs, pretends to cradle her phone to her heart, and pouts. “Oh, well. At least I’ll always have my Bangtan boys and their hijinks, huh? How sucky would it be, though, if someday they did come in and I wasn’t here either, _oof_.”

Munhee nods with all the seriousness she can muster. “I’ll be careful and keep an eye out for them for you, Seoyun-eonnie.”

“Oh, Mun-mun! You’d do that for me? See, I knew there was a reason you’re my favorite hoobae!”

“Isn’t it because we have enough of a height difference that you can use me as an armrest?”

“Yah. _You_ said that with your own mouth, not _me_.”

The bakery warms under the two girls’ laughter. Outside, the rain patters on.

* * *

RJ would like to say he’s a pretty well-traveled alpaca by now. Thanks to Tata and Van’s super-advanced alien tech, he’s had the opportunity to go to places that the young him could’ve never even imagined. Not just foreign countries, but different planets! Entire strange dimensions! While _Perú_ will always be home, RJ has come to love exploring whole new worlds, full of wonderful people and wonderful sights — and most of all, wonderful things to _eat_.

One thing he’ll never get used to, though, is cold weather.

“ _Ach-choo!_ ”

“ _Taa_ (Bless you).”

“ _B-Beh_ ,” RJ thanks him gratefully, sniffling. That was a big one. The alpaca toddles down the street like a wet cloud of cotton, clutching Van’s remote in one hoof, and Tata in his other. After noticing RJ’s shivers, the alien promptly shifted into an umbrella with a polka-dot handle to cover him despite RJ’s protests. So he’s been bearing the brunt of the downpour with a stoic expression for the past ten minutes. A rush of adoration courses through RJ for his little friend. Tata might be eccentric at the best of times, and a mischievous brat at the worst — but he always takes care of his loved ones, bless his rubber heart.

Granted, RJ does feel bad that Tata’s now the cold and wet one instead of him. Inwardly he promises to cook his friend something warm to eat later. Pasta, maybe, or a nice seafood soup. He’d definitely love some, too. Even this brief thought of food spurs his belly into loud growls, already hungry again. RJ clucks and sighs. His sky-high metabolism can be such a bother. Koya theorizes that it’s some remnant of his Machu Picchu royal blood, as his ancestors more or less showered in troughs of rich grass and hay. Don’t get him wrong: RJ loves how he can eat however much he wants and still have room for more. He even swears he can smell warm bread, faint on the rain, at this very moment. But in an emergency like this, his rumbly tummy really ought to take a backseat.

 _Beep-beep_ : “MIX-AND-MATCH AI ROBOT — _V-a-n_ — IS: RELOCATING… RECALCULATING DIRECTIONS… TAKE A LEFT IN 275 METERS.”

RJ pauses with a confused noise. Tata gasps, wobbles in his hold, and then RJ lets go before the alien stands beside him normal-sized and -shaped once more. Rain plips onto his ears, chilling them down to the roots. He shivers at the sensation.

“ _Tata…ta-tata, ta! Tta?_ (She’s on the move? But she’s disassembled! Maybe…maybe she’s rolling somewhere?)” Tata chirps, staring at the remote. He sounds agitated and RJ hums under his breath. He rests a hoof on Tata’s shoulder and tries his best to convey confidence, but RJ can’t help his own worry even as he mumbles soothingly and takes Tata’s hand in his. They start off again, hurrying faster this time.

Ah, but if only his alien friend believes him about the humans! Then they could have some help… RJ sighs. Maybe he _is_ a bit too trusting, but the humans were so nice (and their snacks, so delicious) although the oldest of them, the one with the big broad shoulders just might be his favorite. After all, that guy helped RJ make his breakfast! And gave him orange juice! Sure, he wouldn’t let RJ go outside with him, but then he gave him melon to say sorry — not to mention he has such pretty, fluffy black hair. And whenever he patted RJ on the head, he’d also card his fingertips through RJ’s cottony fur and scratch his ears with the most awed, wondering expression and it’d feel _sooo_ nice.

The alpaca blushes and gives a soft chirp, caught up in his memories. _Seokjin_ , he heard the others call that big human. Yeah, Seokjin would be more than happy to help the two of them find Van and the others.

“—J! RJ! Tata! RJ, here, boy…!”

“ _Beh?_ ”

For a second time, RJ pauses in the middle of the street and tilts his head. Tata blinks water from his eyes at the sudden stop. “ _Tata-tta?_ (Is something wrong?)” he asks.

But then, the most amazing, most familiar smell drifts to RJ like a beacon through the rain. And right away his eyes widen to sparkly black stars.

“RJ, here, boy! RJ, breadbreadbreadbread!”

“ _Ta? Tataa— TATAAAA!!_ (RJ? How come you’re— UWAHHH!!)”

Tata screams as RJ takes off at a speed incomprehensible to normal alpacakind. Fire blazes in his gaze, dashing on all fours. Yelling into the skies, Tata clings to his friend’s back for dear life as they streak down the street, water spraying in their wake.

 _The smell of fresh-baked bread_ : detectable by the alpaca anywhere within a ten-kilometer radius. A single loaf, white buttermilk baked soft and golden-brown, since cooled to a perfect temperature of twenty-three degrees Celsius. More irresistible than a honing signal whenever RJ’s feeling peckish, as he is now. RJ sniffs and beeps in excitement, then veers a sharp left into a side-street. Through the blur of rain, he can see a long-legged figure run past the other end. Then he hears wet shoes slide to a halt, soft splashes as the person backtracks, and a confused then ecstatic cry of, “RJ?! RJ! It’s you!” The voice registers: deep and kind, and familiar to boot. But more important than that, the bread scent is growing stronger, getting closer! Much closer!

“Whoa, RJ, you’re really, oh _shit_ , OKAY, THIS WORKED TOO WELL RJ RJ _RJ STOP_ — _!!_ ”

Taehyung lets out a _shriek_ that cuts off when RJ explodes out of the side-street and headbutts his stomach.

They all crash onto the ground where RJ’s momentum causes them to roll across the pavement, a mess of jumbled, flailing human/alien/alpaca limbs. By the time they stop, the trio are soaked and dirty from head to toe. Taehyung and Tata let out identical dizzied groans while RJ pops up with a joyous squeal of, “ _Bread!_ ” In his hooves is the prize itself: a paper-packaged baguette, raised above his head in triumph. Then it crinkles loudly as he chomps into it, happy as a lark.

“Uggghhhhhhhhhh,” Taehyung wheezes. “Well, uh. That. That went better than I thought.”

He pulls himself upright with a wince, and RJ reaches to boop his nose cheerily. Crumbs stick to his red neckerchief; the baguette’s already a quarter finished. He sits astride the human’s chest as he eats and Taehyung smiles at him, uses his big hands to cover RJ from the rain however in vain. RJ hums and pats his chest to show appreciation. Although Seokjin may be the one he makes heart eyes at, the alpaca has to admit he’s rather fond of this one, too.

“Heya, RJ,” says Taehyung, eyes scrunching up. “We were all worried about you, silly ‘paca.”

“ _Beh!_ ”

“ _Tata, ta…_ (Help, please).”

Surprised, RJ and Taehyung look down to find Tata poking out from under the latter’s hip. His polka-dot legs are pinned underneath Taehyung’s butt, albeit totally unharmed, elastic as they are. Even so RJ chirps in shock, shoves the half-eaten bread into his mouth and jumps to help while Taehyung sputters.

“Sorry, sorry, Tata!”

He scrambles off and stares with furrowed eyebrows as Tata retracts his legs, and RJ lifts him to his feet. When normal-sized (that is, unstretched), Tata proves much smaller than he seemed earlier. This becomes especially apparent when the alien plants himself between RJ and Taehyung, puffing himself up (literally) to look big and brave despite obvious fright. Taehyung seems to realize this, his face falling into an adoring “O” as he peers down at the heart-headed alien. RJ can’t blame him. Tata is the adorablest.

“Hi,” Taehyung greets in the gentlest tone he can muster. Moving slow and careful, he kneels so that he and the alien are eye level, whereupon he tries a shy smile. “Hi there, Tata. I’m Taehyung! You can call me Taetae. Hey, hey, don’t be scared. I’m not gonna hurt you guys. I actually wanna be your friend, if that’s okay?”

“ _Ta-tta_ (No),” is Tata’s only-a-little-tremulous response. But RJ can tell the human sees straight through the bravado. Tata shakes like a leaf, and he shrinks back against RJ’s cotton chest when Taehyung rocks forward. But the human just shifts around until he ends up cross-legged on the drenched sidewalk. RJ lifts his eyebrows. Very smart: he’ll look safer that way — less likely to pounce and attack, the way Tata fears. Cautiously, Taehyung then holds out his hands, fingers open and palm up, non-threatening.

“I’m serious. You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he says, quiet. “I promise that me and my friends only want to help, and we’d never hurt your family either. But there’s— We need your help, too. Chimmy’s here now, too! He appeared like you and RJ, but he slipped and fell into the storm grate. My best friend Jimin’s with him now — and I’d vouch my life that Chimmy’s safe with him, _cross my heart_ — but we need you to help us get him out, if you’d let us. We’re your friends, Tata, I mean it. But you need to trust us, all right?” He hesitates. Draws a shaky breath. “Please? Trust me, Tata?”

RJ gulps the last bite of his baguette down a throat suddenly gone dry. _Chimmy? In danger?_ Fear for his puppy-dog friend spikes through him at the same time Tata lets out a stricken “ _T-Taata?!_ (Chimmy?!)” Yellow lips wobble. A crease between his flat brows indicates he’s near tears. Like a mirror, Taehyung’s eyes water, too, and RJ gives a soft _beh_ of sympathy.

Ahh, so this human feels towards Tata the same way RJ and Seokjin do towards each other. RJ’s not only good looks; he’s a pretty smart alpaca as well. He knows the zing of a _bond_ when he sees one! And at this moment, what he sees is: this human doesn’t want Tata sad. He doesn’t want Tata afraid. Taehyung looks like he wants nothing more than to pull the knee-high alien into a hug, but RJ is glad when he bites his lip and visibly fights that urge. They both know now’s not the time.

“ _Tata_.”

Tata squeaks in surprise when RJ glomps him from behind. The alpaca smiles down at the alien and his eyebrows slant in kind reassurance. He gives his precious alien, his trusted group leader, his dear friend a light squeeze, and hums at Tata’s confused expression.

“ _It’s okay, Tata_ ,” he says and wills for him to believe it, with all his heart.

A long moment passes before, finally, Tata slumps in his arms with a tiny squeak, like a deflating toy. He glances at Taehyung again, black eyes searching. The human smiles back big and warm.

“I want to help you,” he whispers, voice almost lost to the rain. “Please let me help you, Tata-yah.”

Rainwater is getting into RJ’s eyes, dampening his fur. He sniffles and gives himself a shake, jittery with the cold — and it’s at that moment that he hears a sharp intake of breath. Puzzled, he lifts his head to spot Tata’s hand. Pressed into Taehyung’s outstretched palm.

The heart-headed alien pouts first at him, then at Taehyung. His expression is nervous, uncertain.

“ _Ta… O…Okay._ ”

But they both spot the spark of hopefulness there, too.

* * *

“You okay there, Chimmy? How are you holding up?”

“ _Yip! Chim-chim!_ ” is the reply he gets from far below, and a smile flashes across Jimin’s face. Once he told Chimmy his nickname, the puppy reacted with surprise and then total delight at the similarities between his and Jimin’s names, yapping them aloud in equal measure. But his fond expression slides off fast. His fists shove into his armpits, arms squeezed around his own chest. Jimin’s been chattering up a storm for the last half-hour, grabbing for topics about anything and nothing at all in order to distract Chimmy. While still sniffly, the puppy does seem in better spirits for that, if only by a bit. But dammit, _dammit_. Isn’t there anything else he can do besides uselessly talk? Anything at _all?_

Jimin shivers and continues through chattering teeth, “Taehyung’ll be back soon, okay, Chimmy-yah? Don’t worry. We’ll bring you home and get you some warm food, maybe a little hot chocolate, hm, that sound good? Jin-hyung said he was going to make tteokbokki, too! Have you ever had tteokbokki?”

Chimmy answers with a soft yap of  _no_ , and part of Jimin wants to curl up and dissolve into the rain.

“Well — I think you’ll like it! Jin-hyung makes— He makes really good tteokbokki. He’s not the greatest cook, but…out of all of us, he cooks the best. And his food is really…it’s really good.”

Why couldn’t he just _catch_ the poor dog like he meant to? Why couldn’t he… No, no, forget about that. Forget it. He can berate himself later, but right now he has to _focus_. Jimin curses under his breath and fidgets anxiously.

“Come on, Tae…where _are_ you…?”

For the gazillionth time Jimin flicks his gaze around, lip smushed between his teeth. His backpack with the notebooks as well as RJ’s parka sits safe under an awning, so he doesn’t have to worry about that. Part of him wishes he’d brought a raincoat, though. Hunched beneath the downpour, kneeling in the storm drain, his flimsy jacket couldn’t hold out for long and so Jimin is soaked to the bone. Whatever — he can’t bother to worry about himself.

Silence falls with the rain for a while.

Then the low, melancholic whine of a harmonica starts to float up from the drain.

Jimin almost chokes. A lone car drives past, headlights yellow on silver puddles; the tires splash water over his already-sodden shoes as he bends over the grate. Far below, Chimmy sits on the concrete ledge, small legs splayed out before him as he plays on a teensy gray harmonica. He must’ve had it tucked somewhere in his hoodie. The tune is soft and forlorn, such that Jimin finds himself blinking back a new wetness in his eyes.

But then, all traces of tears evaporate as he draws himself up in indignant _fury_. Sorry, Tae. He can’t wait any longer.

“All right then.” Jimin removes his jacket so violently, a seam pops a thread. “I’ll _do it myself_.”

“ _Yip?_ ”

“Hang on, baby,” Jimin calls as he scrutinizes the grate with narrowed eyes. “I’m gonna help you out of there.” There’s the opening, just large enough for Chimmy to have fallen into — but under his knees is the brown, metal grate. Debris and dead leaves clog the slotted openings, which Jimin wipes aside and then hooks his fingers around the thickset bars. Bracing himself, he takes a deep breath, then gives a great big heave. The grate doesn’t budge.

“ _Yip! Yip!_ ” comes a shocked, excited bark — it sounds almost like a cheer. Jimin groans as his arms strain under the weight of the cast iron. Frigid metal digs into his fingers and Jimin’s muscles tremble until he has to let go with a grunt. Yet still the grate hasn’t moved so much as a centimeter. Shit, he could tear a muscle at this rate. Jimin huffs, shifts around, and peers into the drain.

“‘Kay… Okay, okay, let’s try that again. You ready, Chimmy?”

“ _Chim-chim!_ ”

“Heh. All right. One…two… _three—!_ ”

Jimin’s voice cuts off with a strained hiss as he doubles down and _pulls_. A vein bulges on his forearm. Sweat breaks out across his nape, streaming down his face with the rain. Then Jimin feels his stomach swoop upwards when the grate begins to draw towards him the slightest way, squealing dissonance. Dirty gray-brown water rushes over his wrists, smells like cold garbage. Jimin pants, yanks, and at last one corner of the grate pops up onto the asphalt. Chimmy yaps encouragement as, little by little, Jimin tugs and hauls and drags the two-hundred-pound grate out of its place. The storm drain yawns massive now, opened wide enough that his chest and shoulders would probably fit. Water gushes over the edge with a hollow roar. The concrete is slippery underhand. Jimin has to be careful this time when he leans down to find Chimmy.

“ _Ow_.” Jimin winces; the back of his neck had twinged, both arms throbbing. Chimmy woofs a worried question and Jimin hastens to throw him a smile of reassurance. “Ah, I’m okay, Chimmy, just haven’t been lifting for awhile. Lucky for us that I’d at least gotten up to a hundred fifty last time Jin-hyung and I were at the gym. But never mind that. Let’s get you up and out of there!”

“ _Yipyip!_ ” Chimmy barks eagerly. He stands on the near edge of the ledge, peering up with wide bright eyes. Jimin can’t be sure, but he’s willing to bet that underneath the rump of Chimmy’s yellow bottoms, a tiny tail is wagging up a storm.

Jimin looks around again, clenching his teeth when nothing useful appears. He makes a decision, grabs his jacket, then inhales deep and peels off his T-shirt, too. To his surprise, though, the sensation of rain on his bare skin doesn’t make him jolt as much as he thought. Maybe because his shirt’s already soaked through, anyway. Shivering, Jimin knots together the end of his shirt to one jacket sleeve before he bends closer to the drain to toss one end down experimentally. Still too short. The makeshift rope reaches only halfway.

“Think you can try to jump, Chimmy-yah?” Jimin asks, but then he and the dog look at the rushing rainwater-stream surrounding the ledge and shudder. “Mmn, never mind.” Jimin reels the shirt-jacket rope back up and scans around, agitated. He can’t use RJ’s parka, the alpaca can’t handle the cold like Jimin.

So Jimin glances down at his jeans—

“Ah, fuck it.”

—and promptly shucks them off.

 _God, if you’re up there_ , Jimin thinks, face aflame as he knots the cuff of the left leg to his jacket’s free sleeve, _please please_ please _don’t let anybody see me._

The media will have a field day if someone photographs Park Jimin of BTS, out in public, in nothing but Calvin Klein boxers.

“Here, baby, grab hold!” Jimin throws the tied-together clothes down and is immensely satisfied to see that it just barely clears the ledge by a few inches. Chimmy lets out a happy bark and jumps, trying to grab onto the end with his paws. The rope goes taut with weight the moment he does. Jimin braces himself, one knee on the wet ground as an anchor. “There we go, Chimmy! Attaboy,” he praises the dog and receives a _yip_ that scrunches up his eyes. With that, Jimin begins to tug on his end of the clothing-rope. The puppy sneezes, feet dangling. Jimin keeps up a steady stream of encouragements and reassurances as he pulls Chimmy up, hand over hand.

“That’s it, you’re doing great! That’s a good puppy. Hang on, Chimmy, you’re almost up. I got you, don’t—”

Two things, then.

Chimmy sneezes a second time, harder, and the movement jostles the clothing-rope enough that Jimin takes his eyes off his puppy to glance at it.

At where his shirt is tied to the jacket sleeve.

At the slipping knot.

Jimin’s jacket is cut from a cool, synthetic material that traps water in pockets within the lining, and although Jimin had tied it as tight as he could, the T-shirt fabric proves too soft for any traction with the jacket’s. As such, the knot is unwinding and Jimin doesn’t even think. He snaps forward, shoots an arm into the cramped drain opening and grabs the jacket right as it slips free from his shirt, startling Chimmy into a high-pitched bark.

Unfortunately, Jimin slips, too. He’s all but halfway inside the drain by this point — ugh, the _smell_ — and Jimin blurts out a curse and scrabbles at the concrete edge, but his hands shake with cold and he can’t get a good grip. His momentum is already tipping him forward scarily far, anyway. _Great. That’s just_ great _,_ Jimin thinks. _I’m gonna fall and break my damn back, and Chimmy’s going to have to drag me up out of here with his soft little arms. He won’t even be able to, because his arms are too soft and little. Shit. I’m gonna die._

Chimmy squeals and Jimin, who’s trying to push the jacket-jeans-rope _up_ even as he slides the exact opposite way, braces himself for the fall, hopes that by some miracle he’ll hopefully be able to shove the puppy through the opening mere moments before a loud _snapsnapsnap_ like elastic bursts by his ear and Jimin—

“ _JIMIN!_ ”

He.

Um.

He just kind of.

Stops?

Jimin lets out a loud _OOF!_ as a tight force slams against his stomach and legs mid-fall. The breath rockets from his lungs and Jimin gasps, sucks rank air back into his body as his head spins. He hangs against gravity; his calves had just begun to slip inside as well. Any further and he would’ve fallen down into the current of dark rainwater below, which isn’t deep enough to wash him away but definitely shallow enough for him to fracture something on the concrete bottom. Chimmy is barking a combo of actual yaps and frantic, worried words, clambering paw over paw up the jacket to Jimin. The boy manages to smile at him when he feels a wet paw on his cheek. He registers a tautness squeezed round his chest, as if ropes had whipped themselves tight around his whole body to catch him.

Jimin glances down at himself then, and blinks at the realization that he actually isn’t all that off.

“A…bungee harness…?”

“You’ve got him?!”

Hands grab his ankles and he yelps, kicking on instinct. But then Chimmy wriggles to cling to his neck and barks what sounds like a signal. At that, the bungee cords(??) looped around and over Jimin’s waist begin to pull them backwards out of the storm drain opening. Jimin has no idea what the hell is going on, but he holds Chimmy tight as they’re extracted. Then, with a _pop_ they’re out, and he blinks under the glare of gray, rainy sunlight.

“JIMIN-AH!” A massive body hurls into him and clings octopus-style to his torso. Jimin shouts and Chimmy squeaks, squished between their chests. “You idiot, I told you to wait for me! Why didn’t you wait?! You slipped and fell, you could’ve been hurt, stupid, _stupid!_ ”

“Taehyung?” Jimin wheezes into his best friend’s drippy face. A fluffy white hoof wipes at his dirty face with a hum and he gapes, brain still buffering. _RJ’s here, too?_ “When did… But how…”

Then it clicks.

The bungee harness around him. They’re not straps at all — but long, stretched-out arms, dark blue with yellow polka dots. They loosen and retract, and Jimin’s eyes chase them to a little figure with a heart-shaped head.

“T— Tata?!”

“ _Tata!_ ”

Squealing in glee, Chimmy leaps from his arms to pounce onto the alien just as Taehyung had done to Jimin. “ _Tata, Tata, Tata!_ ” he chants, nuzzling a button nose into Tata’s face. Jimin has no idea how, but Tata manages to burn even redder as his expression flickers from pure relief, to shock, to fondness and at last total embarrassment. The alien mutters something intelligible but wraps his arms around Chimmy, too. His dot eyes flit up to Jimin’s awestruck face, then away again quickly.

“You— Tae, you found him—”

“And he _saved you_ ,” Taehyung quips, face flushed as if close to tears. “What the hell, Jimin-ah? I thought I said to wait for me to come back. I told you…”

Jimin feels his cheeks heat with shame and averts his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I’m really sorry, Tae. I should’ve waited, you’re right.”

Taehyung sniffs but his arms pull Jimin in for another hug anyway. His voice is muffled against Jimin’s shoulder. “I just— I’m _so_ glad you’re okay. I saw you slip and I really thought… You _scared_ me, Jimin.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t _do_ something like that again.”

“Never again.”

Jimin squeezes his best friend tight, then lets go and turns. Tata is still watching him, expression stiff and cautious. Jimin smiles and extends a hand.

“Tata? Hi. I’m Jimin. I’m a friend of—”

“ _RJ!_ ”

Chimmy interrupts him with an excited crow and the three of them turn to see the puppy leap into RJ’s chest. He emits happy little barks as RJ chortles and rubs his back, uncaring about the filthy rainwater that soaks into his white fur. Chimmy releases him and toddles back over to Tata, eyes bright, tongue out in a tentative blep.

“ _Tata! Yip, Chimmy, yip_ —” And then a barrage of high-pitched barks and yapping follows, interspersed with bursts of actual human-language words, Jimin’s name and (to the latter’s surprise) Taehyung’s, as well. Tata’s eyebrows furrow more and more as Chimmy talks. But it doesn’t appear to be out of anger. Rather, his expression seems nervously thoughtful when Chimmy ends the lengthy explanation with a chirpy whine.

“ _Tired_ ,” he says and flops belly-up into Jimin’s lap. Jimin can’t help but laugh as he cups his hands over Chimmy’s damp ears. The puppy squirms happily and pushes his nose against Jimin’s palm, hugging his forearm. Taehyung parts his lips in visible awe.

“Oh. He’s so cute!”

“Isn’t he, though?! Good boy, Chimmy, good _boy_ ,” Jimin praises and rubs Chimmy behind his wet floppy hoodie-ears. “You did so awesome climbing up, Chimmy-yah, I’m so proud of you!”

Chimmy puffs out his chest and barks, clearly basking in the compliments. Tata makes a soft, contemplative sound at the delighted expression on the puppy’s face. At that moment, Taehyung notices something else.

“Um. Jimin-ah. Why are you naked?”

“Wh— I am _not_ naked!” Jimin sputters in protest as his entire face turns pink. Chimmy giggles and that doesn’t help matters at all. “I’m in my underwear, thank you very much!”

Taehyung cracks up and doesn’t stop laughing, even when Jimin jumps up (with Chimmy in his arms) to kick his thigh angrily. It gets worse when the older ‘95-liner looks around only to find his clothes discarded in the gutter, soaked and ruined.

“Y-You dropped your shirt into the _sewer_ , I can’t—”

“Shut up, stop!” Jimin hisses between chattering teeth and red-hot cheeks. “Quit laughing at me and give me your jacket, Tae!”

Still cackling, Taehyung nonetheless unzips his jacket and hands it to Jimin, who fumes when he finds that it doesn’t cover him all the way, not at all. But it’s better than nothing, especially as another full-body shudder racks him. His bones feel like they’ve turned to ice within his skin. Jimin notices from the corner of his eye how laughter drops from Taehyung’s lips and his eyes shine with renewed concern. With shame as well, much to Jimin’s shock. Then Taehyung fidgets and mumbles, “I really did take a while, huh? Over a whole half-hour…”

“Huh? Yeah, to find RJ and Tata out who-even-knew-where. And it was _worth_ it, dummy. I don’t know if you realize but Tata just rescued me from a bunch of broken bones.”

“But still—”

“No buts,” Jimin cuts him off, firm. “We got Chimmy out. We have the two lost little guys back with us, so we can go home and get out of the rain real soon. And you came back. Like you promised. I’m okay, and everyone else is, too. It’s gonna be fine, Taehyung…so don’t feel guilty about anything more. All right?”

“Yah, _you guys!_ There you are!”

Jimin and Taehyung startle while Tata jumps in front of Chimmy at the sound of a stranger’s approach. But RJ whirls around with literal hearts popped into his eyes. He lets out an ecstatic cry and jumps up and down, humming an entire chorus as he darts down the street towards the newcomers.

“ _Beh! Beh! Jin!_ ”

Seokjin, who’d been braced under his umbrella running over to them with Namjoon, skids to a bewildered stop. His eyes widen at the sight before him and he gapes between the younger boys, the mascots before them, and the white alpaca running to greet him. Then Seokjin’s eyes crinkle up, newly wet.

“RJ, you— You’re! Oh! There you are! We found you all!!”

“ _Beh-h-h!_ ” is the response, and now Jimin has to crack up when RJ and Seokjin leap towards one another in what pretty much constitutes the perfect slow-mo K-drama scene. The only thing that could have made their emotional reunion any more complete, he thinks, would’ve been if cherry blossom petals began drifting down from the rainy sky. RJ jumps into Seokjin’s arms and buries his face against the man’s cheek. “ _Jin!_ ”

“My son!” Seokjin bawls, clutching the alpaca to his broad chest tight enough that RJ emits a pleased little squeal. “ _I found my son!_ ”

“We put the location you sent us over text into our GPS and took the fastest route it could come up with. Even so, I’m sorry we took so long,” Namjoon says, concerned but level-headed to contrast the melodramatic scene behind him. He holds Seokjin’s striped umbrella over the younger boys, which he’d grabbed when the oldest had flung it aside in a grand flourish. Their leader gives Taehyung and Jimin a worried once-over that melts into a relieved smile. “We called Manager Sejin along the way, so he should be getting here soon. He said that it’ll be less likely for someone to spot us with these little guys if he drives. Hey there, you two,” he adds, addressing Chimmy and Tata this time, warm and careful. Jimin feels Chimmy perk up in his lap, intrigued. “I’m Namjoonie, nice to meet you both.”

Emboldened by his friendliness, Chimmy yaps a happy greeting back. Namjoon’s dimples deepen. Throughout the entire exchange, Tata stands awkward before Jimin, polka-dot hand held tight in Chimmy’s paw. He stares at face after face, wearing a small frown at RJ’s delighted joy as the broadest human pulls from a backpack a padded parka, as well as the way Chimmy huddles into his person’s tummy. Tata stiffens when Namjoon squats down for a better look at him, but although he eyes the tall human dubiously, the alien doesn’t move. Behind him, Jimin sees Taehyung sit up straighter and scoot forward. The boy’s gaze trains on Namjoon; he hovers, lip caught white between his teeth. _Being protective_ , Jimin realizes. The sight floods every part of him with no little fondness and pride.

“Hi. You’re Tata, right?” Namjoon is saying in the meantime. “I was hoping we’d run into you, too. We found somebody on our way here that I think you’ll be glad to see.”

He shrugs off his backpack, unzips it and reaches inside. What he pulls out makes both ‘95-liners gasp while Tata’s eyes grow huge. “Van!” Jimin can’t help his cry. The alien squeaks at the robot’s head, her eye blinking like a laptop on sleep mode, Namjoon holds her out and Tata leaps forward to take her. Spotted arms stretch to accommodate the size and weight of the domed metal head. Tata cradles the robot against his small chest and utters a soft, worried chirr. Whining, Chimmy tumbles out of Jimin’s grasp to scurry over, where he rubs his nose against Van’s darker-gray cheek. Flat brow furrowed, Tata peeks up at Namjoon. Studies the man’s damp face for a good long while. Jimin watches them exchange a long, unreadable look — from one leader to another — before Tata gives a slow dip of his heart-shaped head. Namjoon’s smile emerges on its own, as if pulled from somewhere deep inside him.

“You’re very welcome, Tata.”

At that moment, his phone _ping!_ ’s and Namjoon takes it out to see a brand-new notification flash onto the screen. His face lights up at once. “Yah, all right! Manager Sejin-hyung’s here!” He brushes wet bangs out of his eyes, smiles, and calls as the silhouette of a van begins to take shape through the rainstorm, “Looks like it’s time to go home now, everyone.”

Jimin thinks to himself that Taehyung’s face, when Tata repeats his quiet chirr, could’ve blown away the storm with its brilliance alone.

* * *

“Ow, _ow, hyung,_ my hair!” Jimin yelps over the sound of the hair dryer. Namjoon glances up from his notebook to see Hoseok roughly manhandling a towel over the kid’s head. Hoseok curls his lip, scrubs the towel across blond locks and a corner flips to obscure Jimin’s face. Around them the dorm bustles, filled with chatter and the pungent smell of bubbling tteokbokki broth. The boys managed to rescue most of their stuff from the sprinklers, plus only the ones in the living room activated so water damage had been kept to a minimum. While Namjoon, Seokjin, Taehyung, and Jimin were gone the others met with the firefighters who arrived about the false alarm, then got to work mopping up the rest of the mess and fanning dry the couches. Down the hall, the dryers clatter to a halt; noise levels are at an all-time high as the Bangtan boys wind down in preparation for dinnertime. Minus the still-slightly-damp furniture, it otherwise seems their usual, perfectly normal start to an evening. If not for RJ’s wispy voice coming from the kitchen, and a certain pair from behind the couch, Namjoon could have been fooled.

“This is for worrying us, for not answering my calls and for coming home butt-naked and half-frozen!” Hoseok quips, knife-sharp despite his broad grin. “You thought Manager Sejin chewing you out was all you were gonna get, huh? Well, I’ve news for you, _Jiminie_. You’d best prepare because Hobi-hyung your dear old roommate is _really mad at you._ ”

“But that’s not fair!” Jimin cries under the towel. He sits atop a plush recliner in a pajama shirt and bottoms, feet shoved into a pair of fluffy socks (courtesy of Yoongi). “I was not butt-naked! I was covered in that area! Why does everyone keep insisting the opposite?!”

“Chimmy, hang on a moment! _Yah_ , come back here, you crazy thing, you can’t take after your father like this!”

Baffled, Namjoon watches as a white blob with limbs, dot eyes, and bright red undies comes dashing into the living room. Moments later, Yoongi barrels after him bearing a clean yellow hoodie in his hands and a hilarious glint in his eye. Chimmy barks at him, defiant, and jumps onto the furniture, darting over the cushions, dodging Yoongi’s every attempt to grab him. Almost totally bare, the earless pup looks more like a mochi than an actual dog. A dark birthmark — shaped like a perfect paw print — splays over a round tummy. The tip of a pink tongue pokes out of his mouth in an elated blep. Already Chimmy looks a hundred times better than the wet, sadly sneezing puppy they had brought home. From the other side of the couch, Taehyung’s eyes peek up in curiosity along with a pair of dots under the twin curves of a heart-shaped head. Meanwhile Jimin wails, “Hyung, this is harassment! You’re all just slandering me on purpose now!”

Chimmy spots Namjoon seated on the floor then. He clambers down from the couch with a cheery bark and runs over to weave around him in a hyperactive figure eight. The little dog pulls on his jeans yipping for Namjoon to hold him, but when the man reaches over, he dashes away again with a high-pitched giggle. Unfortunately he bumbles right into Yoongi, whose gummy smile is a sight to behold as he snags the puppy up at last.

“Gotcha!”

“ _Yoooon!_ ” The earless little dog(?) squeals and wiggles as Yoongi works him into the sleeves of his yellow hoodie. Made from well-worn cotton, it had required no more than a hand-wash and short spin in the dryer before spick-and-span once more. Yoongi flips up his hood so that the velvet ears flop into Chimmy’s face; the pup shakes his head rapidly so that they flap with a playful sound. Yoongi chortles at this.

“There, see, now you won’t catch a cold,” he snickers before putting the dog back down. At once, Chimmy runs over to Jimin and Hoseok and grabs onto the former’s calves. Jimin flushes, eyes curled as he beams down at the dog.

“Aww, hi, Chimmy! You feel better, hm? Are you all warmed up?”

“ _Chim-chim!_ ” is the answering yip. Snug and toasty in his dry hoodie, Chimmy clambers into Jimin’s lap where he bounces up and down and clings to his shirt, snuffling against him happily. “ _I love you!_ ”

Jimin squees and pretends to collapse in his plush chair. Chimmy goes to pat his face, concerned — only for Jimin to bolt upright and pull him into a tight squeeze. The living room bubbles over with the sound of Chimmy’s delighted squeals and Jimin laughing with his whole body.

“ _Aaaaaaahhhhh_ , I love you too Chimmy!!”

Above his head Namjoon catches Hoseok’s gaze, whereupon the dancer rolls his eyes and gesticulates wildly to indicate what Namjoon interprets to be loving exasperation towards the sight before him. He offers a tentative smile in response. Then as the living room continues to thrum around him, he returns to his notebook, pen tapping against the binding like a bad metronome.

A messy table of sentences and varying _a_ -vowels fill the page; Namjoon blows out a long breath between his lips. Off by Jimin and Hoseok comes a breathy warble of, “ _Hobi! Hobi!_ ” that elicits an ecstatic scream from the dancer. Which just so happens to be the exact problem they face. By some miracle, or maybe the works of whatever space-time being let all this occur, the little characters can understand the boys perfectly fine. But while Tata, RJ, and Chimmy seem fluent in their understanding of advanced Korean, they can’t actually communicate in it. Not even a little. RJ has proven himself most proficient in a few full English phrases, and even now Namjoon hears him toss out a soft-spoken, “ _Excuse me_ ,” between a bleaty _beh_ , probably maneuvering around Seokjin and Jungkook in the kitchen.

By contrast, Chimmy seems the least vocal of the trio, at least by human standards. He talks rapidfire and excited, mish-mashing puppyish barks with splashes of actual speech, all in English. Tata on the other hand speaks almost exclusively in his extraterrestrial tongue. He does take care to enunciate slow and emphatic, to distinguish between Earth-language and his alien one. Still, immediately upon their arrival home two hours ago, Namjoon plopped down with him and Taehyung where he attempted to decipher the alien’s explanation of where they came from, how they got there. He’d filled almost three whole pages of his newest notebook with jumbled, bi-syllabic sentences before Taehyung got frustrated.

“Hyung, you’ve had him repeat himself twice already. He’s getting tired.”

“ _Ta-tata_ … (I’m okay…),” murmured Tata from where he nestled in the boy’s lap, wriggling his spotted stub-feet. Namjoon opened his mouth to argue, but upon a second look at their faces, he closed it with a sigh and let them go. Now they sit behind the couch with the electrical outlets. Namjoon had snuck a peek earlier to find Taehyung with one hand on his knee, the other gently kneading Tata’s stub-hand ( _paw? arm?_ ) between his fingers. It looks soft, like the limb of a cotton plush. Van’s head sits against the wall, the tapered point at the top of her head flipped open to reveal a multiport bridge, where Taehyung’s iPhone charger connects her to the outlet. Her round eye flashes slow and dim.

He also heard Taehyung speaking to Tata in a low, gentle tone, muffled by the dorm’s noisiness. It looked like such a private conversation, Namjoon decided to let them be. So, here he is, struggling to work out the language of the little heart-alien in order that they might figure things out. Somebody has to, after all.

 _Is it tonal, maybe?_ Namjoon ponders and scratches out a scribbled note. _No, he speaks rather monotonously, so it can’t be like Chinese or Vietnamese… So maybe it’s based on the exact phonetics of the ‘ta’? They all sound like long vowels, can they even be distinguished by ear? Maybe he can… Aghh, but then there’s no guarantee this language has a written form that can even be transcribed into a human alphabet. Damn — I should’ve taken that linguistics course after all._

Who could’ve predicted that the boys’ biggest problem with their LINE characters coming to life would be _language barriers?_

But seriously, Namjoon can’t fight the worry that curls inside his chest like a fist. An inconsistency has jumped out at him about the whole situation and so his brain has begun to work overtime to try and match details. BT21. The prototype merch journals. The apparent randomness of their appearances.

And, most importantly to Namjoon—

_How did Van get here the way she did?_

She has no notebook — none that they’re aware of anyways. The robot had materialized smaller than Namjoon feared (thank _goodness_ , no Godzilla-esque robot battles in their near future) but nonetheless much more physical than the others (she smashed through an awning, dented a cluster of metal trash bins, and all that with just _her_ _face_ ). Namjoon shakes his head, at a loss. What makes Van’s appearance different? What determines how the characters’ pop-outs are spaced, how much time occurs in between and who comes next? Maybe to the others, this isn’t that big a deal, but as the leader _Namjoon_ _has to know._ He has to make sure all this cuteness won’t somehow blow up in their faces, even if only a glittery shower of an explosion.

“ _Beh._ ”

Something pointy and sweet-smelling pokes him in the cheek then. Startled, Namjoon looks up to see RJ. The alpaca wears a sweater tied around his waist in lieu of an apron and holds a plate of sliced fruit. He wiggles a little greeting dance and this time prods the boy’s lower lip with the apple slice.

“ _It’s good! Eat!_ ”

Namjoon blinks and then takes it with his mouth, because what was he going to do, say no? RJ hums and pats his forehead, pleased, before moving away to hand slices of apple and pear to the other boys around the room. Voices ring out in varying tones of thanks.

“You’ve got that look on your face that says you’re overthinking again.”

“Jin-hyung.” Namjoon plucks the apple slice from his lips and gives the oldest a small, abashed smile. He spots Jungkook lingering behind Seokjin and flushes further. “Jungkook-ah…was it really that obvious?”

Seokjin snorts in response, wiping his hands off on a dish towel. Jungkook props his chin on the man’s right shoulder to nod and nod at Namjoon.

“Of course it is, hyung,” says their youngest, matter-of-fact. “You make this really deep frown, your chin kinda juts out a bit… Like this, see?”

“Yah, _yah_ , what do you think you’re doing?!” Seokjin shouts, albeit muffled between Jungkook’s hands as the maknae squishes his face into the expression he’s trying to have Namjoon envisualize. Jungkook cackles as Seokjin bats away his arms to assume a fighting stance, grinning toothily at his oldest hyung despite said hyung’s clear readiness to duel him to the death. That makes Namjoon crack a smile in spite of himself, huffing out a short laugh. Jungkook notices and beams back, regardless of the karate chops landing haphazardly across his shoulders and neck.

“Anyways, hyung, it’s time for dinner! RJ helped us make the tteokbokki and everything!” Jungkook’s eyes sparkle. Clearly he has come around to the concept of LINE characters materializing in the real world. “I did the rice cakes with Jin-hyung but RJ cooked the anchovy broth all on his own. He even plated everything, it looks really good!” (Beside him, Seokjin scoffs. “ _I did the rice cakes_ , he says. Yah, this kid just stood over me while I soaked the tteok and said, ‘Cook for me, servant hyung.’ This brat!” Jungkook’s smile just broadens, this time with a mischievous edge.)

“Ah, that sounds delicious! Just on time too, I’m starving,” Jimin remarks.

“Same,” chimes in Yoongi (as he looks away from where he’d been watching with a dopey, adoring smile as Chimmy and RJ split a pear slice). “Let’s go eat then, guys. Taehyung, Jimin-ah, you two especially — you were wading around in cold water for goodness knows how long. Go get some hot soup into you.”

“We’re coming, coming,” Taehyung calls before rolling out from behind the couch. Tata clings to his shoulders, arms and legs looped around his neck like elastic ties. The alien peeks around at them all and lets out a quiet chirrup. Hoseok claps both hands to his face and coos while Jungkook stares, huge-eyed and curious. Namjoon can’t blame him; Tata is the most cartoony of the little characters so far, thus they find it difficult to reconcile the sight of his wiggly limbs and big heart head with…well, the rest of reality.

“Chimmy, time to eat! Go, don’t let Tata beat you to the table!” Hoseok didn’t even need to say it twice; spotting his friend, Chimmy squeals and gives instant chase, trying to clutch onto Taehyung’s calves whereupon Jimin doubles over laughing. Seokjin grins and strides forward to lug Namjoon to his feet too. Bemused, Namjoon lets his hyung help him up, watching as his notebook and pen plop to the carpet in almost comedic slow-mo.

“That’s right, Joon-ah, it’s food time! You can get back to what you’re working on later, but do it after you’ve gotten some of your hyung’s awesome cooking. We’re here if you want to talk, too,” Seokjin adds with a pat on his shoulder, “so don’t worry about it. Yah, everyone, remember to wash up before you sit or else I’m going to smack your grubby fingers! RJ, son, thank you for the fruit. Bring the rest to the table so we can keep eating, okay?”

“ _Beh!_ ”

As hyung and alpaca scurry into the kitchen to get ready whatever is left to be done, Namjoon hides a smile behind his palm.

Yeah. He’s not alone in trying to puzzle this out.

Jungkook was right: RJ had plated the tteokbokki into ten neat bowls that the humans brought out to the table along with the appropriate amount of chopsticks. The end result is that it does look very nice. The spicy dish combats the lingering chill of the rain, aided by the boisterous sounds of tonight’s dinner. Amidst their usual loud conversations and jokes, the boys watch wide-eyed as the BT21 characters dig into their own bowls of tteokbokki, apparently famished. Chimmy gobbles up his portion and then props his face onto Jimin’s elbow, staring with his tongue poked out, face smeared red-orange and button nose twitching. Jimin laughs and dabs at the puppy’s mouth with a napkin before feeding him another rice cake. RJ wields chopsticks like an expert, eats fast and eager yet somehow still dainty with his small bites. Tata nibbles at his tteokbokki, and seems most intent on observing everybody seated around him. Also, at one point, Yoongi asks for the pepper shaker and the alien stretches a spotted arm straight across the table to hand it over.

Suffice to say that all seven boys are _charmed._

Namjoon finishes dinner first and Seokjin looks over from where he’s ladling RJ and Hoseok second servings. “Oh, Joon-ah, you haven’t showered yet, have you? You should go and do that, everyone else has so the bathrooms are free! _Aish_ , and hurry, I can smell your sweat from here,” he jokes.

“Ah! Right, hyung, sorry. I forgot to…”

“Hah, it’s no problem. You’ve been preoccupied, I know. But go wash up and get into something comfortable.” Seokjin raps him across the knuckles with the handle of his ladle (and accidentally splatters tteokbokki sauce across the table. Welp. Not Namjoon’s fault) and nods towards the hallway. “Hoseok-ah’s got the dishes, so don’t worry about them!”

“Umm, _excuse me?_ ” says Hoseok as Namjoon gets up from the table with his bowl. “I don’t remember agreeing to this!”

Namjoon laughs to himself as he puts his bowl and utensils into the sink, then bypasses the living room to grab his notebook. He pauses, however, upon spotting the BT21 journals laid out on the coffee table — the one for Koya among them. Running his thumb over the edge of his notebook for a second, he relents and pads over to pick it up as well. With both notebook and journal tucked in hand, Namjoon heads down the hall and into his bedroom.

Once the door shuts behind him, the din of his bandmates muffles into background noise, leaving him in a pocket of peace and quiet. Namjoon sets his notebook with its scrawled-out notes on his night table and sinks onto the edge of his mattress with a huge sigh. What a day. Seriously, what a _day_. And to think, the probable cause of it thus far is these inconspicuous journals… Namjoon studies the Koya one in his hands intently. The plastic spiral binding is sky-blue to match Koya on the purple cover. Inside, the sheets are pale, wide-ruled with the BT21 logo in the upper corner. A typical brand notebook — good for schoolkids and doodlers. Hardly something you’d expect to be an entrance into this world for fuzzy little creatures from an alternate dimension.

Namjoon smiles and shakes his head, places the journal down with his notebook, and stands. Suddenly his body feels so heavy with all of these thoughts and concerns. He really hopes that they’ll figure out the nitty-gritty details of this situation, if only for his sanity’s sake.

Well. No use thinking about the newfound complexities of the universe here when he can wallow in them as shower thoughts instead.

Namjoon grabs a pair of comfy patterned pajamas, undergarments, and his phone for some in-shower music. The dorms have two bathrooms, one in the triple bedroom with Hoseok, Jimin and Jungkook, and another as a general shared space; he heads back into the hall for the latter. Based on the clamor alone, the other members along with the little characters must have migrated from the dining table to the living room, probably to play games or watch TV. With a soft sigh (at least they’re all having fun, he might even join them in a couple minutes) Namjoon walks into the bathroom with its peach tiles and white countertop, glances at his tired-but-indulgent reflection, sets his stuff on the closed toilet seat—

—and then does a double-take at the mirror. Where a sky-blue ear pokes up over his shoulder.

Huh.

_Huh._

“Huh,” he blurts out.

His voice emerges flat and shocked. The ear moves, lowers out of sight and Namjoon stares as his brain goes into hyperdrive wracking itself for _any_ detection of an odd weight on his back. It reels when he feels absolutely nothing unusual, though. _How in the world?_ He gapes, unable to process the lack of sensation when he _knows_ something’s there. Then an idea occurs to him. Squinting at his reflection, Namjoon places his feet together and hops straight up, once.

He lands with a thud, and something tugs backwards the collar of his shirt as behind him a surprised, breathy voice squeaks, “ _Koh-ya—!_ ”

_What the absolute—_

“All right then.” Namjoon turns and stares into the mirror. The moment he does, however, he feels his incredulity melt away into stifled laughter. Okay. Okay, despite himself, that’s actually really, really cute, wow. “I know you’re there, Koya. Down you go.”

Clinging to the back of Namjoon’s shirt, positioned perfectly between his shoulder blades, is a small periwinkle koala with a grape-colored nose. His feet press against Namjoon’s spine, rump hovering several feet up in the air. Upon his name being called, Koya visibly startles; his round ears promptly pop off and float with a soft _pomfh_ onto the floor. Namjoon recalls one of the concept art pieces for Koya — the koala holding onto a balloon, drifting into the air — and shakes his head in wonder. Who knew that would’ve transferred over to a reality of Koya being _literally_ lighter than a feather?

“ _K…Koh-yaaa…_ ”

“Mm? What’s wrong? You can’t climb down?”

Koya nods his head, which is round as a blueberry without his ears. Namjoon bites his lip hard and maneuvers over to the sink, where he bends his knees so that the surface is inches away from Koya’s feet. Again, he feels nothing but the lightest touches across his back as Koya clambers down until he is steady atop the bathroom counter. The earless koala then stares up at him as Namjoon turns to squat on the balls of his feet, the two of them eye level. They blink at one another for a good few seconds. Just looking.

“ _Koh-ya?_ ” Koya says at length. He points a paw at his detached ears. Namjoon blushes and fumbles to pick them up.

“Right, right, sorry. Hold still a sec— Um, do they just…? Ah. There you go, all better.”

Koya’s ears are velvet-soft and warm as Namjoon presses them back onto his head. They reattach on their own, it seems, as they stay even when he lets go. The koala touches them with a pleased little chirp. He peers at Namjoon and the leader can’t help the odd self-consciousness that floods him under the scrutiny, nevermind that it comes from a cartoon animal. Another round of staring ensues. Muted laughter rises through the walls. Namjoon clears his throat, then offers a nervous dimpled smile.

“Hi. I’m Joon. You’re, um. You’re in my house. You understand me, right?”

“ _Koh-yaaa_.”

“Ah, right, you— I even asked you a question earlier. Sorry, I’m…” Namjoon passes a hand down his face. Sighs. “It’s just…been a very weird day for me. I’m not used to this. I mean, you’re not technically supposed to be real. No offense.”

“ _Koh-yaa?_ ”

“No, no, I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m—! Denying your existence or whatever. Ah, I can’t put into words, how to explain…” Namjoon lets the sentence trail off and stares down at his knees. “I can’t really tell any of the other members this because they’re having such a fun time with it, you know? But I’m kinda freaked out — okay, _okay,_ maybe a _lot_ freaked out — that we’re, I don’t know, going to end up breaking the laws of the universe, and maybe causing reality as we know it to implode on itself. Ahhh, I’m sure I don’t exactly look like it but my brain is completely fried right now with all of the _what-if_ ’s running through my head.”

“ _Koh-ya_ …”

Namjoon smiles a bit wider at the face Koya makes, glad to find some empathy. “Hah. Yeah, I know. It’s as wild as it sounds,” he murmurs. “But, mm, either way… Welcome to my universe? I guess? My friends and I will all help you try to get home as soon as possible, but…still, we hope you and your friends enjoy your stay here. We’re maybe not the best hosts, but we’ll do our best to be cool. And, ah, not freak out too much. About reality implosions and whatnot.”

Koya lifts his little arms in a cheery warble of, “ _Kohhh-ya!_ ” and Namjoon laughs outright this time. After another moment, he holds out a hand and smiles wide enough to dip both cheeks when Koya uses both paws to shake.

“ _Aish_ , you’re really adorable. I’m really happy I decided on a koala design after all,” Namjoon mumbles. “Kinda wish you guys could explain to me how you got here, too, but honestly, you being able to understand us in the first place is already more than enough.”

Koya blinks, slow and sleepy.

Then he says, “But I can speak full-length sentences, too, if you’d like.”

Namjoon _screams._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not @ how the official BT21 Twitter confirms that [Koya is so light that he can float atop both a balloon _and_ Shooky combined.](https://twitter.com/BT21_/status/1069516727015301120)
> 
> Also not @ how they dropped [this](https://twitter.com/BT21_/status/1075571639243366400) yesterday while I was writing the last bit of this chapter which earned us [_this cursed post_](https://twitter.com/jjanqqu/status/1075624194371739648) from BTS/BT21 fanartist ["jjanqqu"](https://twitter.com/jjanqqu). Click the second link if you want a visualization of what I had in mind with naked!Chimmy (minus the tiny nipples FKLDSJKFLDSKJLDS) LOL.

**Author's Note:**

> [story aesthetic](https://vietbluefic.tumblr.com/post/166596273323/bt21-attack-by-vietblueart-vietbluefic)
> 
> [❁ My Tumblr](https://vietbluefic.tumblr.com)   
>  [❁ My Twitter](https://twitter.com/vietbluefic)   
>  [❁ Buy Me a Cup of Tea](https://ko-fi.com/A010503L)


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